STAUNTON - You’re driving into downtown Staunton. It’s 9 a.m. and you’re ready for the work day. Coffee is in your thermos, you’re already thinking about what you want for lunch — and you’re scouring the streets for a parking space.
You’ve got a lot of things you need to carry into work, so the closer to the front door of your building, the better.
You end up circling the block a few times waiting, and hoping, for someone to move. It’s kind of a thrill to find that perfect spot.
It’s 9:05 a.m. as you settle into a spot a block from your office. You’ll have to come out by 11 a.m. to move your car so you don’t get a ticket. The key is just to remember that.
We all do it. Downtown Staunton has a thing called the parking game.
Employees shuffle their cars every two hours to avoid tickets, contributing to an overall downtown parking problem.
While visitors from bigger cities might consider the parking situation in Staunton to be relatively placid, it’s the convenience factor that matters. There's nothing like pulling up right outside a store on Beverley Street.
“We all get excited when there’s a parking place downtown,” said Dana Flanders, owner of Crown Jewelers.
Take a ride with reporter Laura Peters as she heads out to attempt parallel parking the company car in downtown Staunton, Va. Mike Tripp/The News Leader
And then there's the cost. People want free parking.
Some business owners, like Flanders, opt to buy parking for employees. Others forbid them to park in the two hour spots and play the parking game. A few blocks outside the main perimeter of downtown shopping district, you can park all day in a street-side space.
“If you’re going to be here long, you can walk a little longer,” Flanders said.
The tourists aren’t the ones taking up all the downtown street parking — it’s the locals, many downtown business owners have said.
More: Business owners, residents not happy with parking study results
Latitudes owner Anna Schoenduby agrees that the locals take up the prime parking spots.
“I think it is not a problem for people who come from out of town,” Schoenduby said. “I get the comment a lot that parking is really great here, from people who are not from here. I think for whatever reason it is a deterrent for locals who have a perception that there is no parking available.”
Parking will always come with issues, no matter what is done, said Julie Markowitz, Staunton Downtown Development Association executive director.
“Parking affects how things work,” she said. “For merchants, it affects their livelihood. It’s really an emotional issue. The entrepreneurs that are running these businesses are putting a lot on the line. When it comes to parking, that can impact their business.”
The City of Staunton has been working the past year on an extensive parking study. Flanders said she’s happy that the city is taking its time in deciding what to do, which hasn’t been the case in the past.
One thing that needs immediate attention is the the Johnson Street garage. It’s cracked and crumbling in parts and needs major rehab. Many are hoping with renovations, there will be better signage so people can utilize the spaces in the garage more.
More: Staunton parking garage 'likely' to close for renovations
The Augusta Street lot sees some glitches with its kiosk, making it hard to pay accurately — but most of the spaces are taken up by long-term parking from people who lease the spaces.
Flanders pays for three parking spots in the New Street garage for her employees and herself. Some employees in the past chose to not park in the garage, even though she provided the option to them.
“It’s hard to control where your employees park,” she said. “I was giving her free parking and she wouldn’t take it.”
On-street parking directly affects her business. Many of her customers come in and tell her the only reason they stopped in was because they found parking right out front on Beverley Street.
Flanders said there needs to be a larger turnover on the street to allow customers to come and go. Many parking on the street are employees downtown, who stay downtown for hours at a time. One way to do that is to make the garages free for long-term parking, she said.
Everybody pays
City parking has a big price tag, too — Staunton spent $664,000 on parking during 2017 fiscal year. The city subsidized the cost of parking operations by pulling $119,000 from the general fund, which is funded by taxpayers, a release said.
“There’s a huge cost to it that the city has to bear,” Markowitz said.
In 2017, Staunton spent $112,128 to pay for parking workers, which includes enforcement officers and garage employees.
Markowitz said that parking in downtown comes with a certain perception. Many people don’t want to walk the extra block, because if the store isn’t within their direct sight, it’s not attainable. But people will walk that far all the time when they are going to big box stores or retail malls.
“You don’t think anything of walking a block and a half to the store and then another block inside the store to get to the section you want,” she said. “It’s always going to be an issue. There’s going to be incorrect perceptions.”
Markowitz and others have suggested better enforcement would encourage space turnover as well as generate more revenue. Utilizing a vehicle like the City of Lexington does might be a way to do that. Better signage and overall appearance of garages can help too.
On-street parking solution is a whole other beast. Schoenduby said the threat of ticketing doesn’t deter people from parking downtown and moving their cars.
With the two-hour parking, Schoenduby said many customers or downtown-goers feel like they can’t stay longer than two hours, which takes away from possible revenue that could be made downtown.
“I don’t know if turnover on Beverley is really going to help businesses, because it means that they can’t stay as long,” she said. “But I do feel like it shouldn’t be available for employees to park there, but I don’t know how to fix that.”
“I think that if we had better signage and even free parking in the garages that would get rid of that bad perception,” Schoenduby said. “I think we have plenty of parking, so I don’t think that’s the problem. I think just an understanding of how to use it better and what’s available and if it was free, that would improve the situation.”
The study
The city brought in Walker Parking Consulting in January 2017. The consulting firm has been around for more than 50 years and has done parking studies across the country.
The study was performed in February 2017 and it looked at which spaces are used the most and the ones that aren't. Consultants also inspected equipment, rates, structures and parking utilization.
The city has 1,866 parking spaces, which include parking decks and lots, two-hour, 15-minute and reserved spaces throughout the downtown area.
One of the study's findings: while the Johnson Street garage is vital to a strong parking management, it will have both short-term and long-term costs to repair, upgrade and maintain. According to the study, $2.5 million would be needed to keep the Johnson Street garage operational for the next 20 years. Those costs include design, cost contingencies and construction administration.
Johnson Street garage's most immediate need is to fix water damage, which has led to corrosion and cracking of the concrete. That work is set to start soon, city officials said.
The study left many residents and business owners unhappy with the outcome. The survey's cost — over $54,000 — didn’t tickle them either.
Flanders said she is hopeful for what the city decides.
One suggestion from the study included creating a “champion of parking” position with a salary in the $55-87,000 range. That person would be in charge of everything parking-related in the city, including maintenance, financial soundness and addressing concerns. A parking task force was also recommended.
If the city implements new practices like the study suggest, the system would operate at a deficit of $178,929 in fiscal year 2020. By fiscal year 2023, the system would achieve self-sufficiency with an operating surplus of $53,179, the study said.
But some of those new practices would include more metering, which the city isn’t on board with. It is unclear what path the city is going to take with parking.
And presently the city has no timeline for making a decision.
Other models
Staff is also going to look at parking models of other small cities, such as Harrisonburg.
Why pay to stay in a garage when you can park on the street for free?
That’s how the surrounding localities do it. Harrisonburg, Lexington and Waynesboro all have either completely free parking or different levels of payment for parking.
“The elimination of parking fees altogether is an attractive option, and we have been contemplating a move in that direction since the summer of 2016,” said City Manager Steve Owen in a release. “That very idea was the impetus for the parking study. However, before we further considered a complete elimination of parking fees, we thought it would be wise to commission a study by parking experts to help us understand the consequences of such a decision.”
“Currently, thousands of tourists, businesses and residents who use the City’s parking facilities are contributing to the City’s parking fund, supporting the cost of parking equipment, administrative costs and the upkeep of those facilities,” Owen said in a release. “Should downtown parking become fee-free, the entire cost burden would shift to all city taxpayers, including those who do not use downtown parking facilities.”
Other cities seem to have it down. Harrisonburg, Waynesboro and Lexington all have free parking.
Brian Shull, Harrisonburg Economic Development director, said the city made a switch in 2006 to take the parking meters out.
“Our downtown revitalization efforts were really starting to take hold about that time,” he said. “We were really gaining momentum by 2005, 2006. City council at that point made the decision that we want to really encourage people to come downtown and make it easier for them to eat and shop downtown.”
Taking the meters out hasn’t deterred economic growth, instead, Shull said in the past 10 years, the downtown has been booming with new activity.
Harrisonburg has several different tiers for parking — allowing for free parking and timed parking.
“It was a consensus decision that we would end up subsidizing the parking downtown with the hopes that it would generate more overall economic activity downtown and that certainly has helped,” he said. “Our downtown has certainly flourished over the past 10 years to the point now we certainly have to look at options for more space.
“There was some concern that you were giving up that known revenue source with the hope of generating more activity, but you don’t know for sure. We felt it was safe risk and it certainly did work out well for us,” he continued.
Harrisonburg does parking studies or surveys every two to three years, either through a private company or James Madison University.
Lexington also has free parking.
According to L.D. Perez, special enforcement officer for the Lexington Police Department, over the years the number of spots has changed frequently and the number of lots has also changed, because in several cases a property owner leases the parking lot to the city to use for the public.
Perez said time limits are enforced using a car with two LPR cameras on top of the vehicle and a GPS device.
“When I pass a vehicle, the cameras will take a picture of the license plate and the surrounding area of the vehicle,” he said. “It will also set a timer for the vehicles in their corresponding time zones, which I manually set before scanning the street.”
After time has expired, he goes back through to scan vehicles. If the system believes the vehicle hasn’t moved, he gets an alert. Perez then compares the two scans to see if the vehicle has or hasn’t moved, then writes up citations based on the results.
In 2001, Waynesboro removed certain meters after only producing $9,000 worth of revenue the previous year.
“I am reluctant to say with certainty, but it appears that the removal of the meters was motivated by both practical considerations of the streetscape improvements and parking policy recommendations that emerged from the study,” said Mike Hamp, Waynesboro city manager.
Follow Laura Peters @peterslaura and @peterpants. You can reach her at lpeters@newsleader.com or 213-9125
