Who doesn't have opinions about parking?

Perhaps there's plenty of parking on many days, but Friday or Saturday evenings, esp. when there's a football or basketball game, can be pretty challenging.

It's happened several times in the last year that I/we have either opted not to bother with Franklin St. for dinner or an event because of past parking problems. And at least twice recently, on occasions when we'd decided we'd take our chances with parking because we really wanted to go to X Franklin St. restaurant, we circled for 20 min. and then said "stuff it!" (or words to that effect) and gone elsewhere -- to Carrboro or Timberlyne or ...

Every time a potential patron has to weigh options based primarily on anticipated parking problems, the life of the downtown area is undermined -- something we all already know, but maybe this survey will bring the point home in a different way.

Also: noticed that the survey didn't mention buses as alternatives, which is -- unfortunately -- probably appropriate, at least for activities after dark, when many bus lines reduce or stop service and many peripheral bus stop areas are unlit and unsheltered. Replacing use of personal cars with public transport would be laudable, but how to do it for evening activities is the obvious question.

You bring up a great point. We shouldn't have our little town over run by these Game Day folks. Why not do a Halloween style ban and bus them in? Even the Redskins and Atlanta Braves have parking away from the event and busses running folks in.

If it works for them and they are in large municipalities (well Sprawl areas), why not us?

As for busses, when I come back from Reffing Friday Night Football games through town, the bus stops are jammed with kids at 10 o'clock or even later. These are on MLK and in-town and mostly sheltered, which makes part of your point about lighting and safety...

Do we have a parking problem or perceived parking problem?

Has anyone actually studied the real difficulty of finding parking on a Friday Night?

We live in a University town. It seems like a great Sociology project. Come on students, you can go out on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and call it research. :)

It could also be a Business project. How does lack of parking affect a particular business?

The importance of safe, reliable alternatives to cars for events and going downtown at night, along with better lighting is a great starting point for this.

Maybe this study will be a good starting point to getting answers instead of anectdotes.

--Freedom is not just another word

Here is an interesting map that was part of tonights Board of Alderman packet.

Info about Parking Study here in PDF from Economic Sustainability Commission Minutes.

I live in western Orange and work elsewhere, so I don't have a good recent perception of general parking in downtown CH and C'boro during the week. However, our habit used to be to go meet friends on Friday or Saturday nights in downtown Chapel Hill or Carrboro. Currently, our choice of restaurants is largely driven by our expectations of nearby parking and lack of congestion. Many times recently, we've altered our plans purely because of lack of available parking where we intended to dine. Walking a few blocks is not the issue. The issue is circling and circling and circling with a hungry crew trying to figure out where to park. And after that is solved, then there's the issue of having to wait for a table on the busiest nights of the week. I think if we had a clearer understanding of where parking was definitely available on Friday and Saturday nights, even if it was several blocks away, we might be more inclined to go downtown. As it is, we've become accustomed to primarily patronizing those establishments that have their own off street parking away from the downtown area. (Even though I know that more private parking lots are not a solution.) 

The flip side is that Hillsborough has a couple of  good restaurants and parking more than a couple blocks away is almost never an issue. And there's rarely much of a wait.

If you could get a list of available parking and where it was on your cellphone would you find it helpful?

My guess is a solution could be devised to count available spaces in lots and report them to people dynamically.

Anyone have ideas on how to count parking automatically without spending a ton of money on sensors? Do parking decks have digital counts of available spaces?

Suddenly WiFi in parking lots sounds like a good idea! :)

What is "pay by space?" 

I guess I don't think parking is a huge issue in downtown Chapel Hill. What's an issue is free parking. We like to think that in the evening we should be able to park for free, maybe because it used to be easier to find free parking at night downtown. But it's still pretty easy to find pay parking at night downtown. Maybe it was when I became a parent, but I got to a point where I was willing to pay a few bucks to park so as not to have to circle downtown repeatedly. (And yes I do know some of the secret free spots.) 

As for Carrboro: not enough parking or not enough parking right at Carr Mill? I don't think those lots on Main Street and at Town Hall are ever that busy when Weaver Street is drawing a crowd. It's just a matter of how far you are willing to walk--and in downtown Chapel Hill, you'd probably be willing to walk that far for free parking anyway.

Also, the idea of keeping visitors out of town during ballgames is exactly the wrong idea. Those folks are a pretty major part of downtown's economy.   

5th Quarter Chapel Hill is one initiative that many entities (CHT, Chamber, UNC, Visitor's Bureau, Downtown merchants) have come together to support---it allows attendees at football games to spend some time in our downtown area and still get a ride back to a park and ride lot to their cars when they are finished.   The old model was that we bused all these people in, then quickly bused them out once the game ended.  By providing transportation to designated park and ride lots for up to three hours after the end of a game, we have given people an easy way to hang out afterwards and eat a meal, have a drink, or peruse shops. 

 The data clearly shows that  game day visitors have a very positive impact on our local economy.   By providing them with easy ways to park elsewhere, stay downtown, and then get back to their cars, we can capture even more of that purchasing power in our towns.   

...we rarely seem to get anywhere fast at any time of day. One reason, Vanderbilt reports, is that people are driving to do things they once did at home or down the block. "It is not just that American households have more cars," he writes, "it is that they are finding new places to take them." They're going someplace to eat. They're driving to Whole Foods because they don't like the produce at their neighborhood supermarket. They're going out to get coffee. (So much of Starbucks's revenue now comes from drive-through lanes that the company will put stores across the street from each other, sparing drivers "the agony of having to make a left turn during rush hour.") And they're parking. Or trying to. In a study of one 15-block area near U.C.L.A., cars were logging, on an average day, 3,600 miles in pursuit of a place to park. It's not only the number of parkers on the roads that slows things down. It's the way they drive, crawling along, sitting and waiting and engaging in other irritating examples of what one expert calls "parking foreplay." The answer? Sorry: more expensive street parking to encourage the circling hordes to use pay lots...

The way you get greater availability of on-street parking is to encourage motorists to use the parking lots, parking decks, car pooling and alternative transit by charging more for on-street parking.