Baby, You Can Park Your Car...Or Can You?

Recently I wrote about the need to revitalize downtown Mansfield and outlined specific, practical steps we can take to make that happen. I stressed that positive change won’t happen overnight, or by magic, but only with a united effort by state and local officials, the private sector, and residents of Mansfield.

One of the topics I mentioned as part of that article was parking. If you’ve been living in Mansfield for more than a few months, you’ve no doubt heard a lot about parking, especially in downtown. It’s become a divisive issue, to say the least!

Politicians and local leaders are naturally a little hesitant to take on divisive issues, but we have to remember that many issues are only as divisive as we let them be. Sometimes an issue is divisive because we haven’t worked hard enough to find common ground, devise solutions, and take actions that benefit everyone (or almost everyone).

One group opposes adding new parking in the downtown. Why? Some, citing a 2011 parking study from the Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic Development District, say more parking isn’t needed. Others worry that more parking will only attract more traffic. Still others don’t want to see any additional downtown building or development, which often comes with added parking.

Others support adding more parking to the downtown. Downtown businesses want ample parking for their customers and employees, while landlords want their tenants to have space to park too.

Where’s the common ground here? Almost everyone agrees that we don’t need less parking, so that eliminates some ideas that would reduce the number of parking spaces in one area without adding others elsewhere to make up the difference.

But I also think that we can take a smart approach to parking that first asks whether we’re properly managing the parking we have before we think about adding more of it. My view is that we should do whatever necessary to maximize our current parking supply -- first -- before considering adding additional parking spaces. We need better parking management.

The added reason for my reluctance to add more public parking is simple: It not only costs money, but it may even have the unintended consequence of driving up demand for even more parking in the future. As the City of Chicago’s parking agency puts it, “Building additional parking without managing the existing supply can induce driving and increase the demand for even more parking. Conversely, managing the existing supply can be a cost-effective way to reduce demand or increase attractiveness of underutilized spaces.”

What, specifically, can the town do to manage its parking supply more effectively? There are numerous ideas that have worked in other cities and towns, some about Mansfield’s size, that we should investigate:

• Eliminate minimum parking requirements for new housing units if the developers/owners agree to sell/lease parking spaces to residents, rather than bundle free parking with leases.
• Investigate shared parking arrangements, for example when businesses or houses of worship are closed in the evenings.
• Enforce residential parking permits.
• Enforce downtown parking limits where applicable.
• Set up smart parking meters downtown to balance parking supply and demand, especially during times of peak demand, plowing the profits back into the town’s road repair budget. Meters also give residents incentives to walk, bike, or rideshare to the downtown instead of driving.
• Create a private parking marketplace where local residents can list private parking spaces for rent, thus freeing up some public parking spaces, especially in the area around the commuter rail.
• Encourage carpooling or ridesharing through services like Uber and Lyft.
• Consider back-in angled parking to replace some parallel parking spots, where feasible.
• Continue to evaluate and improve parking signage in the downtown.

As you can see, there are a number of possible public sector and private sector solutions to Mansfield’s perceived downtown parking problems. Many of these solutions do not require the town to spend much money, and many can be piloted for a short period (6 to 12 months) and then evaluated for effectiveness. It’s also possible, if not likely, that state funds could offset some of the costs the town would incur, seeing that the purpose of these ideas is to have a smarter and saner parking situation in the downtown, paying due attention to the need to maintain green spaces.

There’s no silver bullet solution, but we can move in the right direction by trying new ideas that have worked in similar situations elsewhere.