Kent Officials Striving to Ease Downtown Parking Woes

In response to complaints from business owners, the is stepping up enforcement actions against downtown workers who monopolize prime customer parking spots – particularly on Erie Street.

The ever-growing retail market’s need for more parking combined with a reduction in the number of available spots due to ongoing construction downtown has resulted in “parking issues,” City Manager Dave Ruller wrote in his Kent 360° blog this week.

“We’ve worked hard to generate interest in our downtown and it’s working so well that now we’ve got some parking issues to handle until PARTA completes their new 350-space parking garage,” he wrote.

“We’ve actually got a great comprehensive parking management plan that will be in full effect in March 2013 — the trouble is between then and now we’ve got to rebuild just about all the streets that have parking on them.”

The issue of downtown parking has been a top priority for numerous city officials lately.

Just last week, Jim Bowling, city engineer, gave a lengthy presentation to about the comprehensive downtown parking management plan he and others have been working on.

The Parking Action Committee, whose members include downtown business owners, citizens and city staffers, met last week to share schedules, concerns and ideas for parking options.

And Ruller said Kent Public Safety Director Bill Lillich and police Chief Michelle Lee also met last week to discuss options for stepping up enforcement of the two-hour limits in downtown, including after 5 p.m. and on Saturdays, in order to keep prime retail parking spots turning over for customers rather than being tied up by downtown employees.

Because of those meetings, new signs were posted along East Erie and South DePeyster streets first thing Monday informing motorists of the new two-hour parking time limit and the 3 to 6 a.m. parking ban.

And, to make sure motorists got the message, Kent Police Compliance Officer Dana Frazier spent a good deal of time Monday and Tuesday hoofing it up and down those streets chalking tires and leaving warning slips under windshield wipers.

Today, Frazier started issuing actual parking tickets. Downtown employees who previously could park on on Erie for up to 10 hours by permit must now walk a little further to work.

Ruller acknowledged in his blog that "it’s not always easy" for motorists to know where they can and can't park downtown.

"Over the next week or so we plan to put together an information and marketing campaign that will include signs, brochures, ads, etc., indicating that the businesses along Erie Street are open and pointing out where to find parking in the downtown," Ruller said. "There’s no shortage of ideas for how to get that word out there and we’re going to commit city dollars to make sure that happens."

To read more about the city’s continuing efforts to improve parking downtown, check out Ruller’s Kent 360° blog post on the topic.

How do you feel about Kent's downtown parking situation? Tell us in the comments.