Downtown Parking

I overheard at diner recently a common lament in Stamford, albeit one that is not unique to any small city looking to foster a traditional downtown.

“There’s no parking downtown”

It’s a strange complaint in a city with three public parking garages, mostly underutilized, all within roughly a 5 block radius of each other. (I’ll qualify my expertise on their use because I’ve used two of the garages in the last three years at different times as my main work & house car hole - Moe Syzlak & I are not fancy enough to refer to our car storage as a “garage”) In between, you can also throw in a few commercial garages and surface lots to boot. Nearly all places of interest downtown are in short walking distance of these garages.

Let’s clarify the complaint being made then.

“There a is not enough parking within a few feet of where I want to go.”

Let’s carry the remedy of that complaint to its logical conclusion. The expectation would not be to add on-street parking. For the most part, downtown has on-street mostly everywhere that it’s feasible already. Even on a strip like Bedford, with lots of store vacancies, the on-street is already heavily used. While close to individual destinations, on-street parking is not the only answer because the existing stock is either maxed out or any new on-street would be a non-factor in added capacity.

This leaves you with more dedicated spots or lots for each individual location to provide the desired convenience. This takes up space, especially if it’s serving each individual function. Suddenly a downtown’s dense, urban fabric is stretched, even broken. Instead of walking past of a wall of storefronts on the sidewalk, they are pushed back behind parking lots. Walks between theatres, restaurants and bars are extended across rows of parked cars instead of densely packed action taking much of the charm & excitement out of nightlife. Space that could be housing, stores,or cafes is now parking. Buildings are spaced out to accommodate cars, making it longer to walk between locations, in which case you might as well drive between stops. All of this makes a downtown indistinguishable from any other highway strip mall corridor.

The trade off for a vibrant downtown (walkable & dense development allowing people to experience more up close in less time) is that the chance of parking adjacent to your destination is diminished. Route 1 Norwalk is your place if that’s your angle. I would even argue that the walk across the WalMart parking lot might be longer than most people would have to make from one of Stamford’s garages to their destination.

This is definately a big picture approach, and maybe on the micro level it can be a pain in the ass to an area conditioned on drive-in/ drive out convenience. I think there is a few steps the city can take to make this pill easier to swallow.

All garages need to be clean, well lit, and safe (The Summer St garage is a good standard it’s brother’s can strive for.) Increased street signage directing drivers to garages would also help.

On-street meters should be modernized with pay stations and credit card acceptance. For instance, you can add time to a meter where you are parked on Summer St from a station at Columbus Park.

The city should draw a clear line to where parking fees are directed. If they funded downtown improvements (planting trees, installing street lights, refurbishing sidewalks, etc) the public might be less inclined to complain about parking fees.

If you still are not comfortable with short walks or nominal parking fees please be ready to trade in the health of the Downtown as a whole for the solution: