Overview and Framework Proposals to increase the amount of available parking in Lexington Center generate both benefits and costs for Lexington and the discussion to date has not systematically outlined both aspects. To focus the issue, consider the following: Lexington could provide free all day parking to anyone that wants it close to the Center. This could be accomplished by building parking garages on the current Meriam Street and Waltham Street lots. No one advocates this solution however, because it is too costly to the town and the provision of unlimited free parking does not impose any of the costs on parkers. Likewise, many residents feel that a solution that takes residential parking spaces and provides them to all day parkers is also too costly; not to the town in the instance but to the residents. On the other side, not providing close, affordable parking for the Center also has costs, primarily on Center businesses, their employees, and their customers and clients. This committee does not understand or agree with the assertion that Lexington Center has a deficit of 135 parking spaces. It is only during the lunch hour on Thursday and Friday that the available parking in Lexington Center is used to 100% capacity. It is important to note that use to capacity does not necessarily necessitate providing additional spaces. For example dining seats in the Center are also at capacity during the same period, yet there is no sense of urgency that more restaurants need to be built. If there is never a capacity issue, there may be an over investment in parking. This committee does agreed however that the main parking problem is there is not enough all day parking for Center employees. This problem impacts short-term retail parking since many employees park all day in short term parking spaces. It is important to note two facts. First, the majority of off-street parking spaces are provided privately by Center property owners. There are 704 private spaces and 571 spaces in public lots. Any solution that does not recognize this fact is seriously flawed. That is, if additional parking is provided cheaply for business that do not currently provide parking, what is the incentive for those that do provide parking to continue. We do not want these private spaces to be removed and converted into additional retail or business buildings. Second, over 200 people, most of them residents, turned out to discuss the parking solution in January. It is expected that many more will become involved in there is a solution which imposes additional burdens on them or changes the current parking status dramatically. To that end we recommend the following proposals. Proposals (1) Enforcement One of the cornerstones of any effective parking solution is consistent enforcement during the peak parking periods. This means enforcement of both Center lots and meters and signage on surrounding residential streets. Through ticketing and fines, this enforcement should be self-funding. By beginning coverage at nine, before most retail parking begins, it is believed that a parking officer could identify most all day parking that uses short-term meters and quickly eliminate it. (2) Building Zoning and Parking The town needs to either enforce or redraft its zoning requirements in the Center to require that Center buildings provide parking for its own employees and/or customers. That is, new building and remodeling permits must consider and as much as possible provide for current and additional parking. As stated above, most off-street parking is provided this way and without zoning, it is possible this will disappear over time. Most pointedly, will the new visitor center be allowed to open without at least maintaining the amount of parking that was available when a bank used the Depot Building? (3) Parking Inventory The current parking inventory must be catalogued and maintained as a town asset. Responsibility needs to be assigned to a town employee to update the inventory when spaces are added and subtracted. This inventory needs to be considered in all zoning decisions. (4) Long Term Permit Parking Long-term permit parking needs to be increased for Center employees. This can be done several ways. (a) The least cost solution seems to be to increase the number of permits allowed in the Meriam lot and in the Church of the Redeemer Lot. Both permit areas are underutilized and overselling the permits is possible. If a permit only provides a guarantee of a parking space by 10 AM, then on the rare occasions that all permit holders show up, additional day spaces in Meriam lot could be used. (b) The Arts and Crafts Society should be approached to allow permit parking in their lot. This can either be through the town as the Episcopal Church does or permit seekers can be directed to the Arts and Crafts Society and they can privately contract. (c) Private property owners, e.g. Decelle's, can be approached about leasing spaces to other employees. The private spaces in the Center are never at capacity and some business may be willing to lease spaces. (d) Finally, Satellite parking, at lower rates (including perhaps zero), should be considered for all day parkers. By providing LexExpress service to Satellite locations, the town can consider the Grace Chapel lot, the DMV lot etc. (5) Major Employers The town needs to approach the Post Office, which has 126 employees and no parking spaces about a parking plan for its employees. It has been suggested that the Boston Edison Lot may provide some space as well as the above-mentioned Satellite Parking. The Town also needs to examine the free parking it provides its employees and determine if that encourages overuse of parking and whether part of that parking can be shifted to satellite locations. (6) Center Construction Long term parking solutions should not be implemented without considering the short-term loss of spaces due to construction in the Center. The library has not only reduced spaces on Clarke Street but also required Library Staff to find alternative parking. The Depot Square and the High School renovations have also impacted parking around the Center. Construction parking in front of 22 Clarke has also impacted available spaces. (7) VHB Study The VHB study suffers from many flaws. Most importantly, the study never solicited input from residents and did not survey residential streets to examine car traffic and pedestrian patterns. The quickest way to evaluate the VHB study is to drive down Forest Street from Waltham to Clarke. Currently two hour parking is permitted on the South side of the street only. The study recommends changing this to all day permit parking on the South side from Waltham to Muzzey and on the North side form Muzzey to Clarke. We recommend that interested parties drive down Forest and move from the North lane to the South lane at Muzzey as the VHB study recommends. Not only does the street change direction in the middle of the intersection, cars turn from Muzzey to Forest without stopping completely and there is also a pedestrian cross walk for the high school at that corner. This recommendation is one of many that clearly demonstrate the lack of knowledge that the VHB study exhibits. (8) The residents of the streets surrounding the Center have accepted that their streets will be used for overload parking when the Center's parking capacity is at its peak. That is short-term parking during the middle of the day. They do not want their streets used for long-term employee parking. It burdens them from using their own residential street parking for deliveries, repair personnel, friends, play dates etc. We believe it is a mistake for the town is to implement permit parking or all day parking. If so however, residents should have first rights to the permits. It should be noted; a movement towards permit parking will probably elicit a response from residents to move towards resident permits similar to Cambridge and other towns. This would actually reduce available Center overload parking at peak periods as in does in other towns with residential permits. Conclusion In conclusion, the problem that most needs to be solved is long-term parking by Center employees. There are currently not enough permits and some employees utilize short-term parking, displacing retail parking. Before passing this cost onto the town with a parking structure or onto residents with all day residential parking, we suggest adding permit spaces to current town lots and trying to add additional spaces from private business lots. We also suggest working with the Post Office and Town (as the two largest employers) to reduce parking by their employees and develop satellite-parking alternatives served by LexExpress. It is important to remember that if a car can't find close-in Center parking on the first pass for a few hours a week, that is not by itself a reason for dramatic change. We have all queued for parking in Boston and shopping centers in December. If there exists excess capacity at peak parking times the town has probably over invested in parking.