It’s another sign of the fall, or what you might call the shoulder season. Park City Municipal will start new parking rates, as of Monday, for Main Street, Swede Alley and the China Bridge parking garage.
The seasonal rates begin Monday, October 1st and run until December 14th.
From Park City’s Transit Team, Robbie Smooth and the city’s Public Works Director, Blake Fonnesbeck, had details.
“Beginning on (October 1st) rates will be $1 an hour in all the lots on Swede Alley and on Main St. and the China Bridge garage." Smooth explained, "It’s a bit of revision from what we’ve been doing. The hours will be the same, so on Main St. from 11:00 am to Midnight it’s a dollar an hour. (…) Then in the garage it will be the same hours where its paid from 5:00 pm to Midnight, but the first hour is free. Then the surface lots, which would be like the Bob Wells, Flagpole, and Swede Alley those will be 5:00 pm to Midnight at $1 an hour.”
Smooth said that the city’s decision to maintain some charges for parking is in line with its sustainability goals.
“When council decided to adopt this parking program it was not only to try and manage demand in peak seasons and high volume, but it was also to contribute towards councils’ critical priorities of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and single occupancy." Smooth said, "These all go towards energy and transportation, those are the two critical priorities. Maintaining $1 an hour is still serving those goals, while also reflecting demand.”
Fonnesbeck said the reaction from local merchants to the city’s parking system this year has been mixed.
“There’s always a mixed-bag whenever you change something." Fonnesbeck continued, "I think there’s many that like it but there is also those that are struggling with it as well. It’s kind of hard, change is hard. Overall, we’ve had support however we’ve been asked to make sure that we’re being dynamic in our pricing and managing things. That’s what we’re trying to do in this effort.”
They said they hope the lower rates will attract Main Street customers, and not employees crowding again into the parking spots. Fonnesbeck said they hope workers will continue to use alternative transit options to get to Main.
“We still have the Homestake employee lot." Fonnesbeck explained, "We’re still running that shuttle at a 10-minute frequency for employees. We still encourage them to continue to ride that, to use that as well as use our free bus system. If we start to see a real abuse where everybody just comes in and it fills up at night and it gets to where we don’t have any parking again in the evenings. Then we reserve the right to look at that again using this dynamic pricing and change those dates if that happens. We’re really doing this to encourage customers and people to come up and enjoy Main St.”
From the Park City Transit Team, Robbie Smooth and Blake Fonnesbeck.
They said in the future, the Homestake Lot will be replaced by the Arts and Culture Center. They’re hoping that workers will use park and ride locations at Richardson Flat, Ecker Hill, and one other site planned near Quinn’s Junction.
