Downtown Altoona parking improvements discussed

Council floats ideas to better downtown parking

At a City Council workshop Monday, Altoona Parking Authority manager David Curtis told council members about policies he's enacted since taking over three months ago, while officials floated their own ideas about how to improve parking in the downtown.

Curtis has stressed building good relationships with customers, businesses and students; has interacted with drivers who've parked in the wrong places with "friendly" letters designed not to alienate; worked on making regulations clearer and easier to find; emphasized keeping facilities clean and well-lighted; and worked on figuring out how to increase the number of spaces available by restriping, he told council members.

In imitation of a prior job in Wilmington, Del., Curtis wants to insulate council from routine decisions by the authority, which would require a formal policy change but would enable the authority to experiment with adjustments of the free street parking time limits at various locations to find the best fit for the downtown.

Those adjustments could be made quickly, as soon as experience shows what is working and what isn't, and wouldn't require a lengthy process involving council, according to Curtis and Mayor Matt Pacifico, who is a member of the Parking Authority board.

The current standard is two hours free, but there are locations where it would be better for free parking to be limited to one hour, 30 minutes or 15 minutes, depending on the normal length of stays for customers of nearby businesses, officials said.

One way of making more spaces more accessible for customers would be for employees to be required to park in the surface lot spaces farthest from the street, leaving the ones closest to the street to customers, according to Councilman Ron Beatty.

Another way would be to create a system by which employees and others who spend long hours downtown park off-site, then get to and from where they parked via a shuttle bus, according to one proposal.

Another key to reducing parking friction for visitors is to make parking free as much as possible, according to some officials -- although City Manager Christopher McGuire cautioned about encouraging the expectation that services that cost the city money should be provided without charge.

Yet another key to improving the parking situation is to induce more visitors to use the garage, which has a significant number of spaces that aren't spoken for via monthly lease, according to officials.

Education about the importance of taking advantage of the garage could help, one council member said.

So could "marketing," said Councilman Dave Ellis.

Curtis proposed an electronic sign to inform motorists how many empty spaces remain in the garage.

A shortage of parking is "a good problem to have," said Councilman Dave Butterbaugh.

The city ought to aim to make downtown "the place to be" -- such that people would come to spend the day, irrespective of specific events that might be occurring or a specific shop they might want to visit, according to Butterbaugh.

The Parking Authority has money left from an initial American Rescue Plan Act allocation of $165,000 from the city that needs to be spent by the end of the year.

The remainder can go towards some equipment the authority needs to buy in the wake of the recent departure of parking management company Metropolis, which the authority dismissed.

That equipment includes license plate readers for the garage, a kiosk that can accept cards and cash for the garage exit and software for that equipment -- possibly along with software for cell phones that would be used as portable license plate readers in enforcement, according to Curtis.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.