 back to another episode of The City Considerers here at Davis Media Access. My name is Autumn LeBae Renaud. I'm your host and I have with me today Davis Mayor Brett Lee and Davis City Council member Lucas Freyrex and we're talking about the implementation of paid parking in some of the downtown areas. Welcome to you both. Thanks for having us. Thanks so much. So I've been following the news and I've been following the council meetings and you all made a decision to begin implementing paid parking in some areas downtown so we can talk about what they are. And then let's talk about what kind of feedback you're getting from the community and what's going on. Let's start with you Brett. Sure. So some of the feedback we're getting is negative. People are a little bit concerned. I think that's partly due to we have a few people downtown who are opposed to paid parking and they're going around and so they're sort of asking a question which is essentially if you had to pay for parking today would that make you less likely or more likely to come downtown? And with that narrow question the obvious answer is well, no I don't want to pay for parking I'd rather have free parking. But really the important question is if there were a way for parking to be more convenient for you would you be willing on occasion to pay for that parking? And so that's really the more appropriate question because what the city is proposing what we're proposing is really a package and the package is really meant to address what currently is a very challenging situation. So if you instead were to ask somebody hey do you ever have problems finding a parking space downtown? Most people would probably say yes. And so the idea is well how do we address that? How do we come up with a solution? And so the solution is really basically three parts which is some areas of paid parking, some areas of free parking very similar to what we have today which would be sort of a two hour time limit and then other areas of free parking with a longer time limit because we have a variety of complaints about the current parking situation. Part of it is having trouble finding a place but also some people park in the two hour zone they go and they do a little window shopping and then they meet a friend for lunch and suddenly they're running back to their car to find a ticket because they've been there for two and a half hours. And so the proposal is fairly comprehensive. So we have some really heavily impacted areas farmers market on a Saturday for example and the core area downtown any day from about 1130 to one. So which of those areas will be seeing some implementation of paid parking? So I don't know if you wanna talk about this Lucas or I should. Actually if you wanna talk about the area and then I'll talk a little more about it. So the challenge right now is pretty much most of downtown is either free two hour or free 90 minute parking. And we ask employees, hey could you park a little further away to free up some spaces for customers? There's not really an incentive because they move a little further away and they're still in a two hour zone and they're still gonna have to move their car after two hours. And so the idea is how do we incentivize people to sort of move a little further? And that's related to employees but there's also the issue of UC Davis students who are parking in our downtown especially in the sort of Southwest corner of our downtown and then just going to campus for their one class and then scooting back and hopping in their car and driving away because on campus parking is about $9. So in terms of your question about the lunchtime if we had a place for employees where they knew that they could just park for the full day without having to move their car, a few blocks further north, many employees would take advantage of that which would then free up the spaces around the shops. And there have been surveys before showing that a good number of the cars that are parked downtown are not from shoppers. They're actually from employees who are just sort of parking near where they work. So that would free up some space. And then there would be some paid parking areas which would be for people who sort of want even more convenience. And having to move every two hours is no fun for anyone. Yeah, I was just going to add a few things. I think this has been a process so this didn't just come about. I mean, it's been a public and ongoing discussion for several years at this point. The city had a parking task force, the parking advisory task force that was nearly 20 members of all over, representing some downtown businesses, representing just citizens from around the community, a bunch of different groups, Unitrans, all kinds of folks were all part of this. And it met for well over a year and then it came up with a series of 19 recommendations which one of the 19 included adding paid, some paid parking, additional paid parking. You have to also remember that we already have paid parking downtown. The lot on, you know, the East Street Plaza lot is our other paid parking lot. And if you go down there and look in that lot, pretty much most times of the day, it is full because people are willing to pay for some parking to be close to where they want to be. And so the entire series of recommendations included a variety of things like additional electronic wayfinding signage which is just about ready to be implemented right now. We're getting ready to start putting in this different sign. So like when you come under the Richards tunnel, you will see a signage that says, you know, 200 parking spots this direction, 400 parking spots this direction, right? And then also the parking structures as well will have actual signage in front of them, electronic signage that's monitored and goes up and down that says how many spaces are available on each floor and it's really gonna be quite great. So it's a tool to help people sort of find their way. I think that's, there's a whole range of other recommendations that were included but as well as the additional paid parking but those are all things that sort of come together in a package. So it's not just a punitive, you know, we're at making you pay for parking. There's really a whole sort of suite of tools to sort of help deal with the parking management issues. Right. What kind of feedback are you getting from business owners specifically? What I've read, it seems kind of mixed, so. Yeah, so initially when they hear, oh, there's going to be paid parking, they understandably are very concerned but when you sort of tell them about the whole package they're much more open to it. And one of the things that we're very fortunate to have is we have like one of the nation's best parking consultants is going to help us with the implementation. So the idea is not that one day wake up and the whole downtown is covered with parking meters, it's going to be done in a phased approach and as we learn more we'll adjust, not only we'll adjust the amount, the cost to park but also the location of the paid parking areas. Cause what we don't want to do is have an area with paid parking and then the adjacent areas are heavily impacted with people just sort of being half a street away, right? So if you're one of these businesses who's sort of on the edge of the main part of downtown understandably you'd be concerned. Most of the concerns are really addressed when we talk about how we're going to do this carefully and they're also very excited about the fact that we have added some additional parking just before you come under the Richards underpass and that we're also talking about adding some more capacity in another city parcel. So it really is sort of some capacity changing some of the time limits to make it more convenient and then also just a smaller, a small area with paid parking. And so one of the criteria for success is does it actually bring more people downtown? Because I think, well, many of the people I talk to will sometimes not go downtown because they don't want to deal with the parking headache, rightly or wrongly. I hate to admit it, but yeah. And so if you knew for, let's say you were in a rush and you just really wanted to sort of go to one specific shop and would you be willing to pay 50 cents to park in front of a parking meter and have easy access? Most, many people say yes. That 50 cents or a dollar is enough to dissuade the students from parking there because right now it's free. So they kind of weigh the pluses and minuses and they pay for a couple of hours of parking versus being really close to their classroom where they might actually instead get a quarterly parking pass. It might tilt the scales a little bit more towards what I think is probably the more appropriate choice which is getting the UC Davis student parking pass and parking it on campus. Just one other quick point which I think is really important is that, we're also, the key is to actually take the resources, the dollars that we receive in paid parking fees and to reinvest them in the downtown. That's gonna be my next question. What happens with that money? Absolutely. So some of the dollars certainly go to the police department in terms of parking enforcement to help operate that. But the bulk of the dollars will go back into the downtown in terms of like downtown cleanliness. I mean, making sure that the streets are clean and such. I mean, making sure that sidewalks are clean. Really, that's the type of thing and improvements, additional trees in the downtown, all of those types of things. So those are really, it's really important that we take those dollars and reinvest them in the downtown. Right, one question I know you've been asked is, well, is this just being done to raise money for the city? But I think you've really addressed that there. I've also heard criticism that it discriminates against students, low income, elderly people who might not be able to afford parking. And I would say that could be true if it were, if the entire downtown were blanketed in paid parking. But clearly you're saying that there's gonna be kind of a trial with some areas having parking, paid parking and others not. Yeah, so it's really, the trial is really the cost to park per hour and sort of the boundaries a little bit. But what's not a trial is the fact that there will still be free parking downtown and that there will be free parking downtown that is for a longer period of time. As far as people with mobility concerns, I think it'll actually be much more convenient because when we do this, there'll be some more designated handicap parking spots. And then for those that really have a priority for sort of getting somewhere quickly, it'll be a trade off for them, whether they want to pay a dollar to park adjacent to where they want to go. But the downtown is relatively compact. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it, but actually the distances are fairly small. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think the council has done a great deal to tackle this issue over the past couple of years, as you said, Lucas. And I see it all related, the addition of the jump bicycles, for example, the addition of other options where you don't have to necessarily drive. It's all, you have to try it out and you have to see what works. And I know that you get a lot of feedback from the community no matter what decision you make. One question I do have is, from time to time there's discussion about parking garages. Will we build more parking garages to build up instead of out? And so what's the current council thinking on this? Yeah, we're open-minded about that. I believe that currently it's not so much a capacity issue. So we have a garage at 4th and G, which is underutilized. Lucas talked about how we're gonna have this sort of electronic signage. Understandably, people are reluctant to pull into a garage and then sort of go all the way to the top and realize, oh, there's no spaces. But if you know that there's 47 spaces, it's a much more inviting experience. We also want to have better lighting, just make it a more comfortable place for people to park. So we're looking at things like that. Ultimately, though, we will need additional parking and sort of the best practices from what we've been told by the parking experts is for there to be a more of a centralized lot, rather centralized, not so much just one lot in the downtown, but to aggregate the parking in one or two areas so that each individual shop doesn't feel obligated to have their own little two or three spots. And so as we go and have some more vertical mix use and things like that, we're looking at the possibility of adding capacity and that could take many shapes and forms. One important thing, though, in the current situation, people will sometimes say, oh, I don't want to pay for parking. The city should just build a garage. We don't have the $15 to $20 million to build a garage. And then there's one sort of wild card in the mix and the experts have told us to be very cautious about constructing new garages with the approach of autonomous vehicles and things like that. There is potentially a scenario where our car or a shared vehicle will drop us off and then potentially sort of remotely go and park somewhere a little further away and when we're ready to be picked up, it comes and picks us up. Yeah, there's no question that's still a few years off, but I mean, the fear is that we go and spend, firstly, a very large amount of money that we don't have on something that is a single use or one sort of primary use, a parking garage. And then the technology over the course of the next 10 years changes such that it then becomes an obsolete situation. And you mentioned jumppikes. One of the important things, and I think the council's been very open about this, is these are for people who want to use them. I think sometimes people feel like, oh, the council's trying to force me to ride a bike and I don't want to ride a bike. We're not after that. We're trying to make it as convenient as possible for people to support our downtown. And we're trying to make bicycle parking more convenient there. We're looking at some of the e-scooters and just helping people have an easy convenient way to get downtown. And later tonight, it's supposed to be raining. Understandably, a lot of people who might normally ride their bike or walk downtown might like to go by car. And that's fair. We're not trying to micromanage for somebody to choose a certain path. But what we do want to do is make it so that it's convenient and easy for people to get downtown whatever your mode of transportation is. It would say also just one quick point. Add just add on to the jump bike scenario. It's something that we felt was a really cool and unique technology. And it's an interesting tool to add into the toolkit. And the thing that's so great so far is that they've been wildly successful. Those red jump bikes are, on average, getting between five and six rides per day. Yeah, they're everywhere. And so people are really using them. We are out of time for this episode. But I'm going to have you come back in a couple months, if you will, and update us as the implementation unfolds. Keep us posted. And I'll also be curious what the evaluation process will be for how it's working. So we'll have you back again. OK, thanks so much for coming on. This has been The City Considerers here at Davis Media Access. Thanks to our guest today, Mayor Brett Lee and city council member, Lucas Freyrex.