Home

Has the pressure on parking in Steamboat's downtown commercial district risen to the level of a sinus headache? The answers certainly depend on who you ask.

Steamboat residents are likely to perceive a problem any time it's harder to find a parking spot than it was the previous summer or winter. Visitors are more apt to contrast their parking experience in the 'Boat to what they endure as normal at home - or perhaps even to the ease with which they parked in that other ski town 200 miles away.

And while residents are more apt to seek a space close to a specific destination, visitors often value the experience of getting out of their car on a walking mission of discovery.

Travel around the region's resort towns and you'll quickly find that parking in Steamboat is more wide open.

Go ahead - try to find a parking place in the heart of Santa Fe, N.M., on a beautiful June day. It isn't easy as you wind through the grid of one-way streets, many of them unusually narrow. The presence of the state capitol building just blocks off the historic plaza increases the parking pressure dramatically.

Santa Fe operates a medium-sized surface parking lot that requires a fee. And reasonably priced meters govern the on-street parking. Yet, people find their way to the galleries, famous restaurants and museums, where they spend freely.

Closer to Steamboat Springs, in Aspen and Telluride, parking meters have been in place for years. But not the old mechanical parking meters that stand like sentinels on Santa Fe's side streets.

Space is at a premium in the narrow dead-end canyon that is home to Telluride's historic downtown. Blue, solar-powered parking meters stand mid-block on Telluride's main and side streets. The meters, easy to overlook at first, don't take coins, but credit slips you purchase at the Town Marshal's Office or inside businesses. One hour of parking costs 50 cents. Metered parking is enforced from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. seven days a week.

The nearby mountain village is home to parking lots that also charge 50 cents an hour. A full day costs $15.

Parking meters are a fact of life in Aspen, where employees of the city's parking department are trained to provide visitors with information about residential parking permits, all-day parking passes and high-occupancy vehicle parking and transportation alternatives.

Aspen pay stations work a lot like mechanical parking meters, but one pay station covers one side of an entire block.

After parking their vehicles, drivers must walk to the nearest pay station, which accepts coins, parking tokens, credit cards and debit smart cards that are available at City Hall. The tokens also are available from merchants.

Metered spaces in the commercial district are enforced from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and there is a four-hour time limit. Drivers are required to display their parking receipts on their dashboards. The receipts are good for any space in the commercial core.

What is the future of parking in downtown Steamboat Springs? Again, it depends on who you ask.

Several large, multi-use developments are under construction in the downtown district, and their completion will add significant commercial and residential space along the Lincoln Avenue corridor. Add that to a downtown area that, according to a 2005 survey, has 2,807 parking spaces - but only 60 percent of which are available to the public. A 1999 survey indicated more than 2,500 employees work downtown.

Some, such as City Council member Towny Anderson, say the growth of downtown Steamboat means a parking garage will eventually become a necessity. Planning for such a garage, Anderson said last fall, should begin immediately.

Accordingly, the City Council directed City Manager Alan Lanning to study the possibility of a downtown parking garage, which could be built on a parcel of land between Eighth and Ninth streets on Oak Street. The location is home to the Mister Money USA plaza and The Epicurean.

The council also approved the continued funding of a full-time parking enforcement officer and decided not to move forward with paid parking in the downtown district - at least not yet.

- Story by Tom Ross

Local perspectives of parking in Steamboat

Dick Ryan

Dick Ryan, owner of Off the Beaten Path Bookstore, knows firsthand how customers perceive the availability of parking in the downtown core. He recently stepped down as chairman of Main Street Steamboat's promotions committee.

There is in fact a parking problem in downtown Steamboat Springs. I've talked to a large number of people over the years, and parking is their biggest complaint about downtown. If it's a problem for them, then it's a problem for retailers.

As for asking folks to walk two or three blocks, on the surface that appears to be a no-brainer. But it's that very fact that has caused malls to prosper and stores to move out of downtown areas and look to the edge of town.

While I believe that parking meters would help manage turnover of parking spaces, I oppose them for a couple of reasons. First, a concerted effort is being made to make the downtown area people-friendly. I don't believe that parking meters fall into that category. Again, they help drive people to areas without meters.

Offering incentives to downtown workers (to park elsewhere) might help. But keep in mind two very important points. A large number of employees come into town from the mountain and beyond, and the only park-and-ride is on the west side of town. And then one must consider how many employees and employers work until 9 or 10 p.m. Employees of restaurants and bars work even later. I don't think you can reasonably expect those folks to walk to a remote lot after dark.

I suggest that serious planning for a parking structure start now. With the obvious wrangling that will occur in our city government, starting now just might get the job done by the time the distant future arrives.

At Home, Winter 2007

• Rising stars
• Mountains of coal
• Q&A with Verne Lundquist
• Icons of Routt County
• Cozy spaces
• More in At Home

Cami Bunn

Cami Bunn is an architect who has been active on the Design Committee of Main Street Steamboat Springs, which is working on a list of goals to guide efforts to enhance parking.

Parking issues are the No.1 problem facing all successful cities today. In 2005, a parking focus group concluded that "long-term parkers occupy spaces that would be better used by customers." The long-term parkers were largely made up of business owners, employers and employees from the downtown area.

The key to a successful downtown is a solid public transportation system that allows both long-term and short-term parking to be convenient while providing effortless movement through that city. Parking outside of the city center with excellent public transportation support is the second step in targeting and addressing long-term parking needs. Steamboat has Stock Bridge to the west, the Howelsen area in the center, and needs a long-term parking lot to the east.

The parking within the city center needs to encourage quick turn-around, short-term parking. This is accomplished in two ways - through signage with full-time enforcement or through parking meters with full-time enforcement. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Long-term downtown parking (including a parking structure) is the last solution, but often necessary.

Our community could successfully mitigate its perceived parking problem if we were to follow the example of similar communities that have awakened to a very simple fact - parking spaces equal revenue. Therefore, parking spaces are for customers. Period. End of discussion. Each parking spaces has a per-day value of between $150 and $300. If a non-customer parks in that space for the day, that much revenue is lost.