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Downtown Raleigh parking


citiboi27610

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Downtown Raleigh is not begging hat in hand for the public to embrace it. Nobody says to their friends, "gee, I may need to pay to park in Glenwood South. You guys go have fun. I'll go to Applebee's on Hillsborough St where I can park for free." Well, very few people do...

Paid parking on Fayetteville Street will actually make parking there more convenient by preventing people from overusing a scarce resource for too long, and freeing up more spaces more often.

But this decision, while heavy on policy details, is another one of those pivot points for Downtown Raleigh. As has been the case previously, the choice is between the outdated Raleigh-As-Mayberry/Smithfield mindset and the Raleigh-As-21st-century metropolis/LED city/creative class/authentic urban place point of view. There are very few authentic urban places in the Triangle, and thus the real estate in those places is more valuable. It should be no different for parking spaces, which are just another type of real estate.

It sounds like the Parking Task force came up with some good ideas. Let's hope the City Council implements them.

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I've been off here for a few days, but didn't know it was turning into suburban planet.

People want the city to get as much as possible for the land it is selling at The Raleigh and the Southend sites, yet whine unless *acres* of curbside space isn't given away to the select few? Does the city benefit when several people can use the same space, or if one vehicle occupies it all day?

Unrestricted curbside free parking will *eliminate* parking once the first wave of office workers find their spots. Want to go to Morning Times to get coffee and pastries for the office? Paper towels at Taz's? After 8 am/before 4-5pm? Too bad.

Bud Light is just as cold at the Ruby Tuesdays at Old Wake Forest and Capitol Blvd *and* they have free parking, yet their bar on a good night is about as busy as a slow night at Woody's City Market. The higher rents driven by "free" parking at the rennovated North Hills have driven away several businesses from that complex.

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Downtown Raleigh is not begging hat in hand for the public to embrace it.

Really? Then why is there a Downtown Raleigh Alliance? Why did the city put a $20 million subsidy in a hotel? Why did the city rip up a pedestrian mall? Why did the city subsidize a restaurant for Fayetteville Street? Why does the city put on a street fair toward the end of the summer each year? Why are there task forces to "improve parking" and to seek better retail downtown? Why are people upset that the RBC Center wasn't built downtown? One simple answer for all of these questions: downtown is competing with the suburbs for disposable income.

While I'm as happy as anyone about Raleigh's nightlife focus moving downtown, I also am realistic enough to know that this hasn't always been the case and there is no law stating that it has to stay that way. If you believe the comment above about North Hills, try going to Vivace on a Tuesday night.

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I have not found the entire list of recommendations but I assume parking will still be free on the streets after 5? Also, while parking during the day is "free" its certainly not suitable for your average office worker...you'd have to move your car every two hours in the longest running time zones. If the only aim here is to push people into the parking decks, maybe we have too many parking decks(?). Only when events that lure thousands downtown are gong on is parking a problem, and I am not a huge fan of these events. Downtown should be working on bringing sustainable strength downtown, aka residents. Subsidizing a big grocery store might have been better than a convention center for people who actually live downtown.

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Downtown should be working on bringing sustainable strength downtown, aka residents. Subsidizing a big grocery store might have been better than a convention center for people who actually live downtown.

Exactly. While I think that the convention center can be a good thing, what do we have to show the visitors from the convention in downtown? Very little. For dowtown to thrive it NEEDS the basic things that people want...bookstore, electronics store, groceries, clothing, general merchandise type of store (ala Target or otherwise), just the things that people look for. Without the basic things people want, they will have to travel to get it, making it no different than living in the burbs. Being walkable does no good if there is nothing to walk to to begin with. Back on topic...if those things were all there, I'd be more than happy to live down there and could care less if they charged for parking.

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Exactly. While I think that the convention center can be a good thing, what do we have to show the visitors from the convention in downtown? Very little. For dowtown to thrive it NEEDS the basic things that people want...bookstore, electronics store, groceries, clothing, general merchandise type of store (ala Target or otherwise), just the things that people look for. Without the basic things people want, they will have to travel to get it, making it no different than living in the burbs. Being walkable does no good if there is nothing to walk to to begin with. Back on topic...if those things were all there, I'd be more than happy to live down there and could care less if they charged for parking.

If we could get a Target and a Lowe's built downtown, I'd never have to go outside the beltline again!

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I'm tired of answering the same questions over and over, but I don't want to see this site turn into suburban planet.

The Downtown Raleigh Alliance, Raleigh Wide Open, and task forces all serve the same purpose -- collectively educate people about downtown, business to business (DRA), business to customer (RWO), or both (task forces). It isn't competing with the suburbs as much as it is just doing business.

The city corrected the mistake that was the pedestrian mall and old convention center. Raleigh held on to both for too long, since it was too proud to admit its mistake, and the balance of power in North Raleigh decided not a single dime should be invested in downtown.

The "hotel subsidy" is really $20 million in public funding for construction of public meeting areas within the hotel (scroll halfway down), an extension of the convention center. And it was from the County's hotel/meals tax, not city funds.

The restaurant equipment is an investment in the city's real estate (One Exchange), not a restaurant subsidy. The lie has been repeated often enough to almost seem true!

I don't know about everyone else, but I was upset the RBC Center wasn't built downtown because there were/are a lot of parking decks that sit empty at the exact times when a sports arena would be busy -- nights and weekends. But now we have a big sea of asphalt that is empty most days, surround a building that is difficult to get to via mass transit. I don't see how any suburbs "gained" by being out there, other than having acres of space to leave personal transport vehicles for a couple of hours, and to provide parking for the state fair.

I wouldn't feed Vivace's over priced food to my dog, but North Raleigh has a large population of people that like to show how they can spend extravagently on dinner, so more power to them. I did walk around North Hills on Monday (sorry it wasn't a Tuesday, but it was Labor Day, so people didn't have to work) and noticed just about every place other than Vivacie -- Hot Point Cafe, Pharro's, McAllister's, Moe's, Ruth's Chris, Firebirds, Five Guys, and Chick Fil A weren't busy despit all the free parking available. The only places doing *slightly* better were Bonefish and Panera. If they were held to the same standards applied to Martin Street Pizza, the majority of eateries at North Hills would be failures.

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^ I agree with most of what webguy said (except for Vivace, never tried it). Downtown is and always will be a unique place in this city. The rules that apply to suburban stip centers with single owners do not fit well downtown. What makes it easy for say, John Kane, to control every aspect of design, public space, music, rent, events, marketing, and parking at North Hills cannot happen downtown since there are so many diverse interests, shops, spaces, buildings, galleries, and on and on... that's why you need the DRA, parking policy, etc. But viva la difference! because the diversity is exactly what makes downtown unique and interesting in the first place.

I still can't believe the "outrage" at the parking proposals, especially when (1) most people probably haven't read through the summary of recommendations and (2) there is nothing in those recommendations that hasn't already been implemented in countless cities nationwide. In the end, I expect this to be much ado about nothing.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well here is one of the problems.....DMV will give you handicap tags for practically anything. It doesn't stop there, they will give you not one, but two tags and the laws aren't really enforced! That no doubt leads to abuse. NC laws allow you to ignore parking meters and time limits if you have one.

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/growth/tr...ry/1237660.html

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They have to finalize the report and the city council must approve it first, but assuming they do, the recommendations will go into place. I'm sorry that some people feel so strongly about paying a couple of bucks to park in the best spaces that they would boycott downtown altogether.

The city brought in a nationally respected parking firm, and they did lots of analysis of the situation and have a good grasp on the state of parking practice, so I'm going to trust the recommendations they have made, and we'll see in a couple of years whether the chicken little's were correct or not.

I liked your rant, and I agree completely with that and the one I quoted. One thing that you didn't mention is that right now its mostly employees who are taking up the street parking. For as many cars as I saw sitting around on Fayetteville Street I expected to see a lot more people. People act as though paying for parking is going to kill the economy of downtown when it won't. IMO if people want to park far away where its free and walk, then let them. My experience has been that this does not happen. What happens is they pay and the parking spots have higher turnover, thus increasing business.

Needless to say I was very glad to hear that Raleigh was going to start charging for street parking and encouraging people to use the decks, which often sit empty.

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  • 1 month later...

It seems the city council took up the new parking proposal yeterday and will work with the DRA to sell the property owners. WRAL has coverage too.

I'm sure many property owners will not see the light, but the bottom line is pay parking works better for retail because the spots turn over more quickly, enabling more patronage to their business. As it stands, too many people abuse the 2-hour parking and the decks go underutilized, which is completely inefficient. Beyond that, parking isn't free ANYWHERE, and there's almost no major city in America that doesn't charge for on-street parking in their downtowns. It's a no-brainer.

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It is almost funny how this city does so much for itself, then shoots itself in the foot with things like the parking plan. The >99% of this city's population that doesn't live within 5 blocks of the capital will make a choice: do I "mess with going downtown" or just go do ______ (shopping center). Once again, the tide will sway back to the burbs.

Why is it funny? They come up with these blue ribbon panels doing "in-depth" studies to reveal a story that doesn't in any way conform with logic and common sense. Instead of sending the message that downtown is a)________ and b)_________, they send the message that downtown is c)____________.

What are those blanks in the preceding sentence? a) easy b) safe c) a pain to deal with.

For some reason city leaders refuse to even acknowledge that a and b are a problem. People have a much bigger beef with paying for parking than they do with driving around for a space. Southpoint and Crabtree are prime examples. Finding a good spot at each is not easy, but it's free. Item B is the subject of another post.

People will believe whatever message leaders want, so long as they make it simple and repeat it often. Meeker has not gotten the hang of this, and hundreds of millions of dollars of investment will suffer as a result.

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^Agreed. I think the city is making a mistake here.

If the issue is people abusing the 1-hour and 2-hour parking zones, then increase enforcement and raise the fines for violating them. Sadly, the majority of the folk in Raleigh making a quick run or errand to a downtown business is not going to pay a dollar an hour over the option of going to a suburban shopping center.

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I know I've been gone awhile, but I'm pretty sure this is still *Urban* planet, right? The URL says Urban Planet, so I'll go with that.

Unwalkable islands surrounded by a sea of parking are not any safer or easier, except for climate control. And with outdoor shopping areas of Crabtree, Southpoint, and Triangle Town Center malls, to say nothing of the outdoor-only-ness of North Hills, Cameron Village, Crossroads, Brier Creek, Beaver Creek, Stone Creek, etc. , suburban stores give up the "weather advantage".

All claims that these shopping centers are less of a "pain to deal with" vs. downtown between now and the end of the year will be ignored due to the reality of long traffic jams that come with the unhandled traffic problems in and out of the stores. Heck, a Wal-Mart employee *died* this morning on Long Island, with another woman miscarrying her baby while being trampled in the same store. Maybe my definition of "safe" is as wrong as my definition of "urban".

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  • 4 months later...

FYI ALL parking in downtown will soon be metered and the state govt. passed legislation allowing the city of Raleigh to have a credit card option on the meters:

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1484710.html

What's odd is that on Hillsborough Street, about a year or two ago, they removed the coin meters on the block between Sadlacks and Bruegger's with the new debit card electronic spaces....a trial run to show how well they work.....but recently just removed them. Now that block as the green "One Hour Parking" signs. Odd.

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  • 4 months later...

There is an article from Saturday's N&O about how many of the parking decks downtown are going unused, and how there is a deficit for operations and maintenance.

IMO the city needs to do the following:

  1. Stop wasting money on stupid Public-Private Partnerships to put up parking decks for every damn building that goes up downtown
  2. Modify the zoning code to eliminate all minimum parking requirements in at least the CBD district, if not the entire city.
  3. Start charging for on-street parking to get the all-day parkers off the street and into the decks.
  4. Institute performance parking. Control parking rates on a block-by-block basis, and vary the rate depending on the time of day, so that on all blocks so that about 1 out of every 5 spaces is free open at any given time. That would probably mean that some blocks would remain free, but on-street spots on Fayetteville or Moore Square or Glenwood Avenue would be somewhere between $1 and $2 per hour during the peak period.
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I had the not-fully-formed thought the other day that maximum parking amounts might be something to roll over...I know the property rights arguments would immediately be brought forth by the Wal-Marts and John Lockes of the world, but you might be able to justify it with the fact that Raleigh is in a TMDL river basin and storm water runoff generated by impervious surfaces is a major contributor to stream and river impairment now.

Its funny how often the people who live[ downtown are written off for the people who want to visit once a month for Downtown Live or whatever. Many of us at downtown brainstorming sessions have spoken up about there being too much parking. It seems to have been pushed only by business booster groups. For Raleigh to truly be a leading edge city, this outpouring of support for car dependent lifestyles has to stop. The public/private nature of these deals undercuts free market ideals...all the risk is borne by the City... yet I never hear John Locke raise a stink about it. I suppose parking decks are lumped with Beltlines ideologically.

I know jojo has pointed out how all these parking decks undercut any push for mass transit systems. It appears to me there is so much parking in downtown that the physical useful life of these structures could pass before they are even needed.

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Guys, didn't some of us get into a row about downtown parking in the old (now closed) transit topic? One of my assertions (made by others as well) was that with the city of Raleigh's adherence to mid-20th century planning/design and it's absolute, unbending "you will have one parking space for every person" (yeah, a little overdramatic perhaps, but not by much) the center city is missing out big on the opportunities that should have come around with density coming back into vogue due to petrol and other issues of transport. For every parking space that gets built DT, it is space wasted that something else could flourish on. And since economy usually dictates that the parking take up the first five or six levels of a highrise (to save money from the high costs of trenching out a subgrade deck), it is prime, street-level space that is wasted to boot.

You now have an ungodly paradox at hand. For starters, you have an excess of parking downtown now, because your all-wise and all-knowing city leaders dictated it. (And to be fair, I am not blaming it all on the current crop. This $#!+ goes back fifty years, folks.) The only significant and recent ground-level retail space available downtown that I recall, is on the side of Fayetteville Street, but only because they formerly were trying to cater to the Mall.

So, the parking is now so abundant that it is not even recovering operating costs. The parking is not being filled because there is not really enough to do, above and beyond your 9 to 5 government job, to bring people there. There is not much to do downtown because so much space is devoted to parking, that it has soaked up most of the prime land that could create a lively downtown scene. And since many of the parking spaces downtown are in relatively new projects, they are not likely to get redeveloped soon. And really good developers (such as a Rouse) aren't even going to consider DT Raleigh, because they aren't going to eat those kinds of expenses, and the city is too hard in the arteries politically to figure out how to work with them.

So in the end, you're stuck with a lot of parking -- which isn't needed cuz there's not much to do. And you'd think with the newfound abundance of parking that they would reduce the fees in order to entice people downtown, and that would beget new businesses? I highly doubt it. My bet is that they will continually raise fees in order to try to outrun their operating expenses (leaching off of the captive audience -- downtown workers). Which will in turn discourage more people from going downtown and drive more businesses out...Blah, blah, blah...

Anybody know the meaning of public-private partnership, by the way? The profits are private, and the debt is public. The city will not let its "partners" get hurt, lest it gets a bad reputation in the business community, which is the last thing the city wants. The city would rather screw every single taxpayer within its purview first. Like a sociopathic coaching staff at a loosing football team, they'll tell you to "Take one for the team. We'll get 'em next time."

Lesson here being that PPPs can be useful, but you'd better be *bleep*ing sure what you're sponsoring is worthwhile. And that for the Raleigh business community, if not recalcitrant opposition to mass transit, then their deafening silence and lack of support over it will come back to bite them in the @ss within a 10-year timeframe.

I believe I read that Quintiles or somebody might be moving downtown. I sure hope so. That area is in such need of fresh blood, as to border on a transfusion. In the meantime, all is not lost. You can go to Durham. They seem to be getting around to some semblance of urban civilization.

And with a Jaume Plensa feature to boot!... :alc: ...Chao!

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There is an article from Saturday's N&O about how many of the parking decks downtown are going unused, and how there is a deficit for operations and maintenance.

IMO the city needs to do the following:

  1. Stop wasting money on stupid Public-Private Partnerships to put up parking decks for every damn building that goes up downtown
  2. Modify the zoning code to eliminate all minimum parking requirements in at least the CBD district, if not the entire city.
  3. Start charging for on-street parking to get the all-day parkers off the street and into the decks.
  4. Institute performance parking. Control parking rates on a block-by-block basis, and vary the rate depending on the time of day, so that on all blocks so that about 1 out of every 5 spaces is free open at any given time. That would probably mean that some blocks would remain free, but on-street spots on Fayetteville or Moore Square or Glenwood Avenue would be somewhere between $1 and $2 per hour during the peak period.

+1, Orulz.

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Now it's the parking decks' fault!

The parking decks are not taking up nearly the acreage that was taken up by surface lots twenty years ago. Don't you remember? blocks and blocks of plain tar?

And we can't blame the parking decks for the lack of retail. Many of the parking decks have retail spaces on the first floor, or are partly enclosed in retail spaces. And many of those retail spaces are empty.

After the recession eases and growth returns, these parking decks will fill up and will aid that growth, and we'll be glad we have them.

I do not think that without the parking decks we would be rushing to build commuter rail. On the contrary, without the parking decks, downtown would be even less developed than it is now, and there would be even less of an urban culture to push for commuter rail.

Some young folks are so impatient! Downtown has doubled in size and activity in the last twenty years, but some people are freaking out because it has not quadrupled. Meanwhile, a lot of downtowns have shrunk in the last twenty years.

"There's not much to do." Good grief! Well, it's not Manhattan, but downtown does have three theatre companies, an opera company, a ballet company, a symphony, four museums, forty or fifty restaurants, a boatload of bars and clubs, an eclectic selection of retail, banks, offices, art galleries, gyms, conventions and expositions, outdoor concerts, festivals, parades, historic sites, parks, lots of friends to visit, ricksha rides, carriage rides, churches, hotels, a train station, a bus station, a college, etc., etc, etc. And at least half of this wasn't here twenty years ago.

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A couple of random thoughts on parking decks.

One nice thing about standalone parking decks is that IF downtown changes and transit makes parking less necessary and land becomes too valuable to use for car storage (even multi-level car storage) they can easily be torn down and replaced with something. Integrated parking decks - not so much. You can't tear one down without tearing down the building as well. Integrated parking decks should IMO always be built with "convertible" floors - built to withstand greater loads, higher ceilings, and flat (rather than sloped) floors.

As Jones133 pointed out, we've got a real problem if the useful life of these structures is exceeded before they're ever even needed. I can't imagine they've been built with a design life of greater than 50 years. I also think that we have a real problem if, in spite of all these public parking structures, the city keeps forcing every developer to include a bunch of parking in everything they put up - something which has a huge impact on the finances of any development project.

The city could also shift its policy to increase utilization of the decks, as I mentioned, by actually charging for on-street parking like everywhere else in the country, or better yet performance parking.

If nothing else, this extreme glut of parking is nice because now whenever somebody from the suburbs says "I don't go downtown because there's not enough parking" we can just tell them to shut up.

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  • 2 months later...

TBJ is reporting that Raleigh is about to start charging for on-street parking downtown on December 17th.

Personally I'd prefer single-space meters that accept credit cards, but it looks like the city will be using multi-space meters. I hope the ones they use downtown are faster and more reliable than the ones that they were using on Hillsborough Street.

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