PARKING ADVISORY PANEL MEETING The PARKING ADVISORY PANEL (PAP) met on Tuesday, January 19, 2020, at 3:30 p.m. as a virtual Zoom meeting. The meeting was opened by the Acting Chair Kirby Hutto. The following members were present: Jake Mooney, Jamelle Bouie, Danny Yoder, Joan Fenton, Michael Cusano and Mike Rodi. In addition, Chip Boyles, Garland Williams, Amanda Poncy and Brennen Duncan attended as invited guests. Standard City staff in attendance were Chris Engel, Rick Siebert and Jason Ness. Mr. Hutto began the meeting by proposing the acceptance of the draft minutes from the last meeting. They were approved with one typographical correction. The meeting was opened with a brief introduction by Siebert explaining the Parking Action Plan was developed from the 2015 Nelson Nygaard study. It was a five year plan from 2015 – 2020. The purpose of today’s meeting was to gain input from the Panel members on their recommendations for an update to the Plan. This was a follow up from last month’s meeting. The Panel’s guests were invited for their input on this subject based on their positions and unique perspectives and experience. Mr. Boyles opened with some comments. Although he has been recently selected to become the new City Manager, he was invited to this meeting based on his position as the Executive Director of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission. He began by explaining the TJPDC’s responsibilities for TDM and especially operating a network of Park and Ride Lots. He indicated a limiting factor on the utilization of these lots was a lack of good transit connections. This was good lead-in to the next speaker, Garland Williams. Mr. Williams is the leader responsible for the Charlottesville Area Transit (CAT) program. Williams expressed his strong desire to improve CAT ridership and the role he saw for CAT in reducing parking demand and improving multimodal transportation options. He indicated his desire for improvements in service and the role of funding in making that a reality. On that topic he spoke briefly on difficulty in make swift changes based on the partial federal funding CAT and federal regulation. Mr. Hutto then asked both speakers if data was being tracked on ride share and park and ride usage. Williams said that CAT did not track parking lot utilization. Boyles indicated that the data collected by TJPDC was limited to how many vehicles might be parking on a park and ride lot on a given day. Hutto indicated that tracking this kind of data from a historical perspective could be very important in improving modal split. Mr. Duncan jumped in saying we need more data on not just how many vehicles are parking but why did they park there, where did they come from and where are they going. He indicated he did not see the current lots as a sufficiently broad or sophisticated network. He suggested the new Parking Action Plan should not be a focused on the Downtown Mall as the original plan. He suggested it should be more of a city-wide program. He expanded form there to talk about that fact that we do not know what is going to happen with telework on the other side of the covid pandemic. Ms. Fenton suggested some commercial space may be moving to residential use. This change may make a difference in the peak utilization of parking. It may move away from mid-day weekday to evenings because of this space utilization change. Mr. Siebert suggested we might need better single occupancy vehicle (SOV) trips data. He suggested the limited data available is national or regional and that we probably need local data. Boyles suggested that TJPDC had access to Streetlight data through a state contract. He indicated this is mega-data based on cell phone tracking that would provide transportation records. He said TJPDC lacked the staffing or funding to interpret this data, but it may be available. Mr. Engel indicated that he agreed on the important of the data being discussed and though the collection of this data may be a good objective for the new plan. This was seconded by Ms. Fenton. Mr. Hutto suggested that a differentiation between type of parking customers may also be important. He gave examples of downtown residents, out of town visitors, employees and local visitors. Jake Mooney also seconded this need for this data. Ms. Poncy said she had not used Streetlight data herself. Mr. Yoder said he actually had. He suggested that there was not a great deal of expertise required to use the data but that it did take staff time. Ms. Fenton asked about the status of the CAT route change on South St. He suggested it may return to the old routing but not before July or August at the earliest. Mr. Williams went on to say that reduced headways way the single best thing that could be done to increase CAT ridership, but the biggest impediment was a lack of funding. So, he certainly supported an increased funding request for CAT in the new Plan. Ms. Poncy talked about the role of increased biking and walking in improving the modal split. She recommended support in the Plan for an improved bike ped network. She also suggested more secure bike parking would also help and suggested it could be located in existing or new garages. Mr. Mooney said he had a bike locker room available at his office and it was a great benefit. Poncy went on to recommend such amenities might be encouraged in the city’s land use code. Mr. Siebert suggested one source of funding for improved transit could be a portion of parking fees collected. He indicated such a system was not uncommon nationally. He also suggested, however, that the need for more parking revenue was one of the drivers for paid on-street parking. No support was voiced for paid on-street parking. Mr. Hutto returned to the topic of maintaining parking supply. He talked about the need to track the loss of parking over time. He recommended a plan to track this data. Ms. Fenton emphasized the need to alter the public to possible parking impacts of all proposed projects. Mr. Duncan suggested a possible payment in lieu of lost parking for projects could be incorporated in the city code. Mr. Williams returned to the importance of viewing parking in a holistic way as a part of multimodal transportation system. Mr. Yoder returned to the issue of the uncertainty of future transportation demand and parking demand. Based on the uncertainty of the future, he suggested the plan needed to focus on tracking parking demand as the local economy picks back the modal split evolves. Mr. Siebert provided some historical perspective on peak demand downtown. Mr. Duncan reminded the panel that there were also demand issues associated with UVA hospital parking and that this demand had remained relatively unchanged during the current emergency. He noted in particular the negative impact that this had on surrounding neighborhoods. Hutto asked if there was any public comment. None was offered. The meeting was adjourned at 4:25 PM.