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Council talks downtown parking

Thursday, October 17, 2019

San Marcos’ Parking Advisory Board presented a three-phase plan for downtown parking and mobility to City Council this week. 

In 2012 the city hired the consulting firm Kimley-Horn to create a downtown parking initiative, and then re-hired the firm in 2016 to develop an implementation plan for on-street parking. According to previous reporting by the Daily Record, council approved the Parking Program Framework Plan in 2018, “which lists ‘big-picture goals’ and some primary action items related to parking management downtown.”  

The parking advisory board was then created in April in order to implement the recommendations of the Kimley-Horn downtown parking initiative. 

The parking advisory board has met for the past 5 months to develop six recommendations to council, and on Tuesday, Carina Boston-Pinales presented the three-phase plan the board is recommending.

In summary, Part 1 recommends 100% of net parking funds garnered downtown since Dec. 4 2018 be placed in the parking and mobility fund. Part 2 recommends that funds garnered downtown stay downtown. Part 3 recommends citation letters be mailed to all parking violators. Part 4 recommends that a Park and Ride system be developed by utilizing electric cabs to shuttle individuals to downtown. Part 5 recommends the hiring of a Parking and Mobility Manager and the addition of parking enforcement staff. Part 6 recommends the city use part of downtown vitality funds not to exceed $50,000 for a matching funds program to creation a resident surface lot parking program. 

The first phase of the plan will be used to increase enforcement of the current parking situation. 

“Our recommendation as a parking advisory board is recommended to increase enforcement by enhancing the existing staff and onboard a parking manager to adequately educate the public and implement a parking plan,” Boston-Pinales said. 

The first phase recommends the increase of funding for parking enforcement staff, that citation letters be mailed out to all parking violators and the creation an 18-month surface lot parking program using vitality funds. 

The second phase of the recommended plan will be contingent upon the success of the first phase, according to Boston-Pinales, and would potentially establish a park and ride system that would be serviced through an electric cab. 

In the third phase of the recommended plan — contingent upon the success of the first two phases — the board suggests conducting an assessment of paid meters and a possible parking garage. 

“As the behavior is adapted and changed downtown the recommendations of the board has been presented from Kimley-Horn to be assessed in the direction of paid meters and possible parking garage,” Boston-Pinales said. 

Mayor Pro-Tem Lisa Prewitt, who served as a non-voting member of the advisory board, said the board used the framework that Kimley-Horn offered the city and then narrowed it down to make it unique to what the committee thought would work best for downtown businesses, residents and employees.

“I know that there is definitely some concern that the city council appointed this advisory board to look at implementing downtown paid parking in phases and districts,” Prewitt said. “The consensus after the first two or three meetings was ‘we have to first come up with a solution for employees and their parking before we can go to paid parking’  and I think that that was a healthy choice in my opinion.”

Council discussed the six parts of the resolution recommended by the advisory board, and provided direction to staff on five out of the six recommendations, which included directing city staff to go before the TIRS board to ask for funding for the development of a park and ride system. 

San Marcos Record

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P.O. Box 1109, San Marcos, TX 78666