Park Omaha's strategy

[FlatwaterTurley]

Howdy, everyone. My name is Jeremy Turley, and I'm a reporter with the Flatwater Free Press. I'm working on a story about the city's parking strategy, and this seems like the perfect place to find smart people who think about this kind of thing.

The city revamped its approach to parking about 15 years ago and has grown its parking stock in that time from about 8,400 stalls to more than 15,000. Another 5,800 spots are on the way, including 2,200 in the new Mutual tower that the city agreed to buy for $99 million.

As I understand it, the city's strategy is to consolidate parking in prime areas and cross-utilize the same spots for different types of users (commuters, residents, nighttime crowd). This would eventually allow for underutilized surface lots – particularly in downtown — to be turned into apartment buildings and commercial spaces. The increased parking fees collected will help the city pay for streetcar operations and parking structure maintenance.

The upshot for everyday people: You'll probably have to pay the city to park in downtown and midtown more often than you do now.

I'm curious what y'all think of all this. I'm looking for people who would be willing to comment on different aspects of this. Feel free to reach out by email at jturley[at]flatwaterfreepress[dot]org. Thanks!

[OverlookedFarm]

Never forget one thing: Contrary to their claims, the city finance department is in the parking business. And they want to make good money on their investments. This is a good reason the small independently owned surface lots and garages no longer exist. Government hates competition.

They are not supposed to make "significant profit" on the parking operation, but do spend the excess revenues on related infrastructure. Same mission creep that is the "wheel tax" or "property tax". Expenditures are not responsible, tied or related whatsoever to the revenue sources. This turns the parking venture into a No-Rules-Just-Right Outback Steakhouse experience.

In my opinion, very little in the pay-for-parking areas of town are worth visiting, so I feel it impacts only those who choose to live and work there. If you want me to patronize your TIF-fueled fun zone that I'm already paying for, incentivize me by picking up my parking tab as a local resident. Until then, there are many other TIF-fueled fun zones I can visit and not have to redownload and rekey my CC info into their marginal at best parking app.

Forking over parking fees to offset the streetcar debacle is a pittance, and afterthought at this point.

IBthatsnothowTIFworksidiot

[ita]

Never forget one thing: Contrary to their claims, the city finance department is in the parking business. And they want to make good money on their investments. This is a good reason the small independently owned surface lots and garages no longer exist. Government hates competition.

I, personally would rather have city owned parking garages, which, according to you, are being paid not by taxes but the parking fees, that consolidate parking needs downtown/midtown than the small parking garages and surface lots in the urban core. Those small parking garages and lots are either private only or, if they are open to the public, also require a fee to park, often at a much higher premium than city owned parking garages and lots. Additionally, they are often located in valuable or very desirable areas or lots that could be redevelop into much better uses (same with some city owned garages). While I would rather not have any new parking built, when it is being built purposefully, ie. support the streetcar route and increasing the likelihood of success in terms of additional development along that route and built with multi-use in mind, ie. the garage at the Duo, Blackstone, Mercantile, Millwork Commons and the Builders District, I think it is a fine strategy.

[Jins123]

ParkOmaha being in Nebraska Medicine parking garages and “the edge” development is absurd and so eye rolling to see. A new development with a new brewery in town and their whole surface level parking lot (not the parking garages) is metered during regular hours

[locoluke]

Omaha parking rates as well as tickets are relatively cheap. Private lots are usually more expensive in my experience. It’s convenient to have the single app as well. My only gripes are that there isn’t a map incorporated into the app with parking locations/zones and rates. Parking rates have certainly never kept me from visiting somewhere.