The latest parking consultants’ report is in.
The conclusion: Westport has a parking problem.
BFJ Planning + THA Consulting delivered that verdict — and a 9-page document — to the Downtown Plan Implementation Committee on Thursday. The study cost $46,900.
After observing parking occupancies during summer, fall and winter 2024, the consultants observed:
- Peak occupancy downtown occurs on weekdays around 1 p.m.
- Occupancies are highest in the “Core Parking Zone.”
- Demand for all-day spaces in the core is at “practical capacity.”
- Public lots outside of the core are “generally under-utilized.”
The “core zone” is the area north of the Post Road between Myrtle Avenue and Parker Harding Plaza, and south of the Post Road between the Taylor lot (lower Library parking) and Imperial Avenue.
The core downtown parking zone.
The consultants offered these goals:
Spread long-term parking demand out of the core lots. This could be done by creating all-day permits and permit areas. There would be one permit for a spot in the core zone, and a less expensive alternative for an outlying lot.
Increase hourly parking opportunities in the core. To do this, 3-hour spaces would be converted to 2- and 8-hour spaces; some all-day spaces within the core parking zone would become 2-hour spaces, and “occasional 15-minute parking” would be introduced in the core zone.
(The selectwomen recently changed 2-hour parking limits to 3 hours, at the urging of downtown merchants and restaurant owners.)
A parking management app could manage hourly parking. The consultants noted that there are already 13,000 ParkMobile users in the 06880 ZIP code.
License plate readers would be used for parking enforcement.
The popular Park Mobile app.
Increase the efficiency and security of the Police lot. Used primarily by the Police Department now, this could be expanded, restriped and clarified as a public parking area.
The consultants did not recommend a parking deck — a recent discussion in town for, among other places, Elm Street — due to its cost: estimated at $4.9 to $5.25 million.
Though noting they are “not anti-deck,” Georges Jacquemart, principal of BFJ Planning, said that introducing the parking management strategies outlined above should be the first steps for town officials.
He added that funds collected from parking fees could be used to improve pedestrian access from outlying lots, and perhaps be used for other downtown parking projects.
Perhaps a deck?
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