Downtown Parking Public Information Meeting

Documenter name: Sharon Ailslieger

Agency: None

Date: Aug. 29, 2024

See more about this meeting at Documenters.org

Notes

This meeting was sponsored by the Wichita Chamber of Commerce .  The focus was on how paid parking would impact small businesses in the downtown area.

Mayor Lily Wu and City Manager Bob Layton were in attendance.  

The meeting opened with Damon Young, a staff member for the Kansas Leadership Center, stressing that we need to look at ideas and understand the pros and cons of those ideas.  Decisions need to be made and that can be difficult. The more information that is available, the better decisions can be made. Interacting with others, listening to others, curiosity about different ideas can all lead to Civic Leadership and, finally, an informed decision.

Assistant City Manager Troy Anderson spoke on clarity of what is happening and that words do matter.  Parking is an important part of our community and it is not “free.” Someone is paying and the City needs to oversee parking.  A Management System is needed.  The City currently does have a Parking and Multimodal Plan.  This plan began taking shape in 2019 with an online public survey, a steering committee, and work sessions. The Pandemic of 2020 interrupted the planning. In 2022, the planning began again. Currently, Wichita has inconsistent parking management, which cannot be sustained. It cannot continue to pay for maintenance without, eventually, having a negative balance. The cost of maintaining public parking averages around $500-600 per space, per year. The City needs to use best practices in the management of City Parking.

The audience was asked to make comments, express concerns, and ask questions. Issues of concern, included

1. Will this impact patronage to my business?  Who will pay?
2. Is this just another tax?
3. Will employees have to pay to park? What about volunteers?
4. Will the management contract go to a company outside of Kansas?
5. Will this offer another reason not to come downtown.
6. Will this really cover the cost of parking and will all the revenue be targeted for that purpose?
7. Should street parking vs garage parking be a consideration?
8. There have been other studies and one option would be for businesses to purchase parking spaces and pay the city for them.
9. Parking meters are ugly.  

The final activity of this meeting was led by Jason Bosch, a staff member of the Leadership Center.  The goal of the activity was to generate ideas about downtown parking in a short amount of time. These ideas should be bold and viable, identify possible solutions but no solution is perfect and the ideas do not need to be fully developed. Everyone received a note card and a pencil. Each person was asked to write one idea on the card. Next the cards were traded among those in attendance and asked to rate the idea appearing on the card. This was repeated until each idea had five ratings from five different people.  The numbers were added up and circled.  Ideas rated between 20-25 were written on posters.

The five top ideas were:

1. Parking passes
2. Allow busineses to purchase spaces in front of the business,
3. Day parking passes if the technology works
4. Offer a set number of spaces for employees at a reduced price.
5. Define goals more clearly.

Those in attendance were asked to choose which one was the best based on strengths, risks, and whether it needs to be studied further, if that idea is considered.  All the results will be given to the City.  

City Manager Bob Layton closed the meeting with a few remarks.  He reminded everyone that we need sustainability, affordability and safety when considering parking management.  This issue will be before the Wichita City Council  on September 10, 2024.

Summary

Summarize the 3 most important outcomes or takeaways from your notes....

• Paid parking in downtown Wichita is volatle issue.
• Small businesses are really concerned that paid parking will hurt their income.
• Something has to be done that is sustainable.

Follow-Up Questions

What are you left wondering? Ask up to 3 of your own follow-up questions...

• Will the cost actually be absorbed in other ways, causing the average citizen to pay more in overall costs?
• It benefits the City, but no one else. How is it a plus for the downtown area?
• Could there be another way to pay for the maintenance than paying to park?

If you believe anything in these notes is inaccurate, please email us at documenters@citybureau.org with "Correction Request" in the subject line.