observations

SUMMARY OF OBSERVATIONS

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OBSERVATIONS

There’s a parking crisis in Downtown Fort Lauderdale
Is there?
There’s no need to worry about parking. There’s plenty of parking. Just look at the sea of empty spaces throughout the city.

Exceptions: the in-and-out parking lot in front of DPEP

Examples: The City Garage at the Main Library

Downsides of more parking:
Space is taken up that could be better used (pedestrians are discouraged if there are large spaces between buildings and a sea of asphalt in the hot sun blocks most cross-town walking)

Waiting for spaces leads to air pollution

Parking garages attract slow moving vehicles and collect air pollutants.

Solutions to parking problems can generally be incremental and lower in cost
Example: Adding signs to tell how many places are left in the garage.

Solutions to transit problems and congestion are usually in the millions of dollars:
Example: adding a lane to Broward Blvd., doubling the number of buses.

Tailor the parking requirements to the uses.

Rather than have one standard for “Industrial”, look closer at the actual use and needs of the site.

“There’s not enough parking.”
Not in the city Garage near the Main Library.

Is parking the right price?

Most people who want to raise the cost of parking are focused on the transportation side of the equation. They want to reduce congestion to improve air quality or they want to reduce the number of people fighting to get downtown so that drive times to work will be shorter or to boost mass transit use.

What if the employer is not allowed to pay for parking or provide free parking spaces to employees?

Such a requirement would have to be county wide or region wide and may have unintended consequences. If parking is restricted downtown, certain institutions might follow the County in moving their offices west.

Benefits of an increase in parking fees:
Use the incremental increase in fees to run a shuttle/community bus between downtown destinations and central parking lots or park-n-ride lots near I-95.

The problem of expectations
Click HERE for MORE
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“There’s too much congestion.”
Oh yeah? Not at 10:30 a.m.

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We’re getting older (the future of community buses for emerging non-drivers)

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Changing demographics.

Condos in Lauderhill were originally for retirees from the north. Some of them bought their first car when they moved to Florida. They had one car per unit.

Now younger people are buying these same condos and both adults work, both own cars, and the children will eventually own cars. Homes designed to hold one car could need spaces for three or more.

Do we have to come into work between 8 and 9 am?

Sharing office space

Drive in for meetings

Avoiding peak hours reduces congestion and reduces the waiting time in parking garages at exit and entrance times, further reducing air pollution.

Centralized information
A spreadsheet is available with information about all of the city ordinances currently on the books in Broward County.
The spreadsheet was compiled by DPEP’s Air Quality Division
rbunge@co.broward.fl.us
Rosalia Bunge, Natural Resource Specialist II
218 SW first avenue
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
954 519 1262
fax 954 519 1495

The future is more people wanting to go more places more quickly.

The world is getting smaller
The world is getting bigger

The Regional Transportation Summit
www.greatermiami.com for registration

Parking Garages

What is the role of GPS?
Global Positioning Systems

We aren't futurists...

More draft observations, click here

Las Olas Art Fair
September 2001

A Case Study of Parking Issues

Background
The Las Olas Merchants Association and the City of Fort Lauderdale have jointly supported the use of Las Olas Boulevard as a site for art fairs and other public events. The street is closed to traffic and parking issues arise. Where should the cars go?

The neighborhood association that straddles Las Olas is called Collee Hammock. The boundaries run from Federal Highway in the west and the Intracoastal (about 17th Avenue) in the east, Broward Boulevard in the north and the New River in the south. Additional large parking lots could be found at several churches in the area and these parking areas have generally been available for visitors to park during special events.

Frictions

The popular events that led to the temporary closing of Las Olas Boulevard grew popular over time. At first, parking in the small lots near Las Olas handled about half of the attendees, with the remainder spread along side streets of the neighborhood. The events became so popular in late 2000 that the neighborhood association requested that the organizer of the arts fair, Howard Allen, should make arrangements for parking in garages outside the neighborhood. The neighborhood group further requested that their street be closed to all but local traffic.

These arrangements were put in place in September 2001. The following added expenses were incurred:

Barricades were rented to block the side streets of SE 1st Street and SE 2nd Street, plus the entrance from Las Olas Boulevard and Broward for 13th Avenue.

Signs were created and temporarily installed to direct traffic away from Las Olas, away from Collee Hammock

Parking was arranged in garages west of SE Third Avenue.

Feedback

A survey was distributed by the Las Olas Merchants Association to gauge response to the new parking arrangements. Here are some quotations:

Parking lots behind my store were empty. I think the efforts were overdone.

Replace the teenage explorers with signage, access for one car to go on the street with three barricades and signage "Do not park in our neighborhood" and list garages. By putting Parking Shuttle signs all west of US 1. There was limited traffic in neighborhoods. The plan worked well with very few bugs. Parking in lots on Las Olas was quite empty. We can now streamline some of our efforts. (Howard Allen)

I drove in and out of the area several times crisscrossing the streets to Broward and from Broward all the way down from Las Olas to the Isles. No problem at all. At times I was the only car on the road. Also, with Sagamore open, it was easy to get through the area. A well planned event. I think that when Sagamore opens for good, that the closing of Las Olas Blvd for events will not cause any problems for the neighbors or neighborhood. Only during these trying construction time has the neighborhood suffered some traffic congestion, but haven't we all? Including merchants, visitors, locals and particularly workers on the Las Olas Blvd. Once the construction is finished the few street closings will hardly be recognizable. Calculate the street closing on Las Olas Blvd and you will find the percentage quite low if calculated by days or even lower if calculated by hours. Probably less than 1 percent in a year. (Ray Chagnard)

The President of the Las Olas Merchants Association made this list:
Feedback from neighbors: too many barricades and police in the neighborhoods
Employee parking was hampered.
An over-abundance of law enforcement.
Merchants who had always offered their parking lots to visitors for a nominal fee were told they needed permits.
Parking companies were told that visitors had to park in garages.
The lots on the south side of Las Olas Blvd were empty.
The Las Olas Association has no budget for hiring such a sophisticated parking plan for the holiday event in November. The Association will need financial support if this plan needs to be implemented for all of Las Olas Association special events.

Observations

1. The parking lots south of Las Olas were almost entirely empty, despite access to Sagamore from the west side of Las Olas (near the former Hyde Park Market, the

2. The parking garages at 350 and 450 East Las Olas are closer to the event than the County and City Garages.

3. Volunteers used to watch the barricades did a supreme job at dissuading lost drivers from entering the side streets of the Collee Hammock neighborhood, but they were largely absent by 3 p.m. on Sunday. (Rightly so, we add, since the bulk of the invasive parking probably takes place in the early part of the day, probably before noon.)

Recommendations

The writers of this report hesitate to offer their own suggestions, given the volatile nature of neighborhood civic groups. We stick our necks out to suggest that the barricading for the entire two days was perhaps extreme and we point out that the barricades could probably have been removed

As pointed out in the observation section above, the barrier on the east end of Las Olas should not be on the east side of the bridge, but should instead allow westbound traffic on Las Olas to make a left turn and get to the parking lots on the south side of Las Olas. The barrier should therefore be placed at the corner of 11th Avenue, where the Northern Trust Bank and the fun shop called Elements are located. Louie Louie, the popular restaurant, is on the north side of this intersection and the parking lot would also be available for access.

A Parking Case Study – Parking in a large office building.

In the mid-1990s, a survey was taken to determine if there was a surplus of parking. The results indicated that there was at least one parking space for each employee.

The study area extended south from Sunrise Blvd to 17th Street and east from SW 7th Avenue to the Intracoastal. This large area included the international Building and Galleria mall.

There were approximately 32000 employees and 34000 parking spaces.
The ratio is close to 1.1 parking spaces for each employee. Under such circumstances, it is difficult to suggest that parking for

A micro study of two large office buildings on Las Olas Blvd. tells a different story.

450 Building
Employees estimated     700
Parking spaces available            577
Spaces available on typical day    80

350 Building
Employees estimated    900
Parking spaces available 725
Spaces available on typical day   20

Total number of employees: 1600
Total parking spaces: 1302

Ratio of parking spaces to employees: 0.81 to 1. Roughly 18 percent of the employees walk, ride a bicycle, share a ride (or get dropped off) or take the bus to work.
Source: Judy Carter [mailto:JudyC@stiles.com]
The writers of this study want to thank Judy Carter for taking time to arrange for the delivery of a parking survey with a memo from her desk to encourage all tenants to complete the survey.

A total of 25 surveys were returned (3%) by October 10. Judy certainly did her part in encouraging as high a response rate as could be expected for this topic.

An Inquiry about Visitors who get Tickets
City of Fort Lauderdale Parking Service   Your fax   828 3734
Attn: Mr. Hoelzle,

Thank you for your staff’s quick response to my request for numbers of parking spaces in the City’s garages. Your swift reply helped me immensely.

An issue has been raised by someone in the Convention and Visitors Bureau about the number of tickets that visitors incur each year.

1) does your computer system keep track of the zip code of the people who mail in their payments? If so, would it be possible to estimate the number of payments over the past year or so that have come from out of town or out of state?

2) If your system does not have such estimates, would it be possible for me to drop by and look through some back records (under the supervision of one of your staff members)?

3) Is there a policy of “leniency” or “mercy” towards visitors from other countries (such as waiving fees or reducing the parking fine)? If so, I’d like to see a sample of the letters that are used to convey “condolences” ?

4) How many AUTO PARK meters are in current use? (I just signed up and it’s a cinch to use!)

Thanks -- please reply to nmy cell phone at your convenience

646 8246
my fax 467 1660
Thank you!
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Should Visitors Get a Free Pass?

The impact of a parking ticket on a visitor’s memory of a place is difficult to predict. In some cases, the experience from the visitor’s perspective is so intensely difficult, there is little to do by the hospitality services (either the customer service desk at the City’s Parking Office or the Convention and Visitors Bureau staff). An analysis of the complaint letters received by the CVB show that each year two or three visitors take the time to write to complain about some aspect of the parking system.

Out of state registry of a vehicle is not a guaranteed indicator of the driver’s status as a visitor. (Some residents choose not to switch the registration of their cars to Florida, or they live here six months out of the year and can’t be considered visitors – “they should know better not to park on the Beach after 4 a.m.”). Receipts for paid tickets would be a useful source of statistics about the percentage of tickets issued to visitors. The parking organization could track to see if visitors have a particularly difficult time with signage or use of specific parking meters.

Another potential souce of feedback is collected by the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. The CVB’s “complaint binder” collects correspondence from particularly irate and motivated visitors who have taken the time to write a letter. A recent analysis of the collection of letters dating from August 1999 found that 24 out of a total of 48 letters related to to the expectations of guests toward their accommodations (quality of the hotel accommodations, reservations, service, etc.), 15 related to taxi service, four were directed at local attractions (boat tours, etc.), and a surprising 6 (about 16% of all complaints during the past 3 years) letters specifically about parking. (The remaining three complaints fell into a miscellaneous category).

Remedies
Remedies used by the CVB to assuage an irate letter writer include offering a certificate or pass that can be used locally (on the next trip).

Parking tickets can also leave a negative taste on local drivers. Some merchants consider parking meters in front of a store to be an obstacle to business and they feed the meters when they see the red “EXPIRED” sign.    Potential remedies to tickets given to local residents could include:

a) a one-time “get out of jail free”, one-time amnesty on a ticket. (Just a good will gesture). The person’s driver license is then on file along with the car and if either are associated with a future parking ticket, the fine would not be waived.

b) a pleasant note with the ticket:

“We are sorry that your meter expired. To encourage greater turnover of parking spaces on this street, we charge you to park here. We’d like to describe some of the projects that your parking fine will support. Please come again and we suggest that you consider using the AUTO PARK meter device which is pre-paid and doesn’t require you to carry exact change for the coin operated meters. Again, please accept our sincere apologies for giving you this ticket, but we hope you will avoid them in the future.”

With the brochure could be a small pie chart diagram that describes the proportions of the fine that are allocated to paying bonds on the parking garage and the part that goes to future projects or “commissioner’s discretionary fund” which supports local community activities.