OGDEN – With over 87,000 residents and growing, Ogden is starting to launch a pay parking program in its downtown area, a system that has been in the works since 2020.
Ogden City Council members are scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to adopt an ordinance that includes establishing a new Parking and Mobility Enterprise Fund to handle revenues and expenses associated with the new system.
Having to pay for parking – especially in areas where people have parked for free – can be controversial. But a November 2021 report by consulting firm Kimley-Horn justified the move as allowing “for the equitable and efficient management of a limited resource.”
And anyone who has searched for a parking spot on Historic 25th Street during peak business hours can attest to those limitations. Diagonally parked vehicles generally occupy the entire two-block stretch of Historic 25th Street during peak business hours.
Parking expert Donald Shoup, an urban planning professor at UCLA, described the time-sucking search for parking in “Cruising for Parking.”
“A surprising amount of traffic isn’t caused by people who are on their way somewhere,” Shoup wrote. “Rather it is caused by people who have already arrived. Our streets are congested, in part, by people who have gotten where they want to be but are cruising around looking for a place to park.”
Shoup found that charging the right price for parking results in freeing up spaces periodically and reducing cruising time to a few short minutes.
Ogden is now on the cusp of figuring out how to get that calculus right.
WHY PAY PARKING?
In early 2022, Ogden City unveiled plans for pay parking and additional parking structures in the downtown area in accordance with Kimley-Horn’s parking study.
In a recent interview, David Sawyer – deputy division manager for Ogden City Business Development – detailed the roll out of the downtown’s pay parking system and why the city needs it.
“The assessment showed that current parking capacity is generally adequate across the entire downtown but some areas are full all the time,” Sawyer said, noting that pending downtown redevelopment will further overwhelm existing capacity.
“There were some blocks that typically reached or exceeded the effective capacity threshold which is 85 percent. Once it gets to that point they tell us that it negatively impacts accessibility and discourages visitors,” Sawyer said.
The study recommended that Ogden consider paid parking in its high-demand areas to spur quicker turnover and support the health and vibrance of its downtown.
“The plan is to start implementing the new parking system on Historic 25th Street and Kiesel Avenue this fall,” Sawyer said, “but it will initially be free so people can get into the habit and work through the learning curve of using the system. Then in the spring of 2025 the plan will be to start charging in those locations.”
With more density comes change in how more parking can be provided.
“Big asphalt parking lots are a thing of the past,” Sawyer said. “They’re not a good use of land in the most valuable parts of your community. So you’ll see parking done in more creative ways and in a structured fashion.”
This fall, Ogden will begin training downtown patrons and employees to start using kiosks, apps and online sites to park in high-use areas downtown. But the actual pay portion won’t kick in until 2025.
During a July 9 City Council work session, community and economic development staff rolled out the following timeline for its implementation:
- July 2024 – fill new position of Parking & Mobility Operations Supervisor
- Late Summer 2024 – publish request for proposals to set up the pay parking system
- Late Summer 2024 – adopt the city’s new parking ordinance
- Fall 2024 – award contracts for the pay parking system
- Late 2024 – launch first phase of parking equipment for 25th Street & Kiesel Avenue
- Early 2025 – establish online pay parking in the first phase
THE FLAGSTAFF EXPERIENCE
Flagstaff, AZ – a city similar in nature and size (about 76,000 residents) to Ogden – began implementing pay parking in its historic downtown in July 2017.
When the Covid-19 pandemic swept across the U.S., the program went on hiatus in March 2020 but then resumed in March 2021.
Flagstaff Parking Manager Gail Brockman described its initial downside and subsequent benefits.
“There were a couple of different needs that the program was supposed to meet. One was to better manage existing parking downtown – we’re definitely seeing a benefit there,” Brockman said.
Not surprisingly though, people reverted to their old parking habits when the program took a break during Covid.
“Essentially all the spaces downtown became a parking lot for downtown employees. So parking no longer became fluid, it wasn’t available,” Brockman said. “Since we reimplemented in 2021, it’s been working the way it should be. It keeps parking moving, it keeps it available, which is definitely what you need for a smaller downtown.”
Prior to implementing its pay parking system, Flagstaff relied on time limits.
“A lot of people (mostly employees) did what was called the two-hour shuffle,” Brockman said, describing how they’d park a block away from their workplace and run out every two hours to move their cars.
Flagstaff’s second need involved adding more parking spaces, which Brockman said the city has done as land becomes available.
But no one embraced the pay-to-park concept at first.
“There was a lot of pushback, we were not a very well-liked program,” Brockman said. “But a lot of people now see us differently, especially business owners who say they appreciate how we’re managing parking in the business district.”
Downtown Ogden faces a similar conundrum.
“We have parking limits as far as times, and employees come out and move their cars periodically,” Sawyer said. “We need the parking to turn over more frequently …. the prime spaces are pretty much full all the time, but the business might not have any customers.”
For employees who can walk a block or two to work, parking will continue to be free in the Junction’s parking garages, Sawyer said, also noting that during inclement weather, a free trolley will transport people from the UTA lot at 23rd Street and Wall Avenue throughout Ogden’s downtown.
View more parking details here: www.ogdencity.com/goparkogden
Editor’s Note: The headline of this article was updated to clarify the vote taking place on Tuesday.
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