Jefferson City has retained the services of one of the nation's leading parking consultants to analyze how to plan for future downtown needs and possible new parking facilities.
The project began Monday and will feature a public meeting from 4-6 p.m. Wednesday in the Boone/Bancroft Room at City Hall.
The gathering will provide an opportunity for residents to comment about downtown parking issues and the four-pronged internet survey being conducted by the consultant, Rich & Associates of Michigan.
The firm's Jefferson City project manager, Annaka Norris, will spend this week in the Capital City working with Britt Smith, operations division director of the city's Public Works Department.
"The consultant will be studying our parking demand within the downtown area. This effort will update the 1999 study conducted by the same firm," Smith said. "A study of this nature helps us find out our strengths and weaknesses as it relates to providing cost-effective parking to support the businesses, restaurants, agencies and residents of the downtown core. The ultimate goal of the study is to find ways we can improve."
Sonny Sanders, interim director of the city's Planning and Protective Services Department, said "I believe it is good practice to keep studies and plans up to date. The parking study will provide city staff with information needed to provide the best parking solution to serve businesses, employees and visitors in our downtown."
Since 1963, Rich & Associates has been providing parking planning, studies, operations consulting, parking development and management, architecture, engineering and functional design. Its more than 100 municipal clients include several other state capitals: Burlington, Vermont; Des Moines, Iowa; Tallahassee, Florida; Lansing, Michigan; and Salt Lake City, Utah.
Norris said Rich & Associates "will be analyzing a pretty big area around the Capitol, including the retail area, to determine what the needs are now and get an idea on what they will be."
As part of its data-driven study, Rich & Associates will use the internet-based Survey Monkey to collect input from four sectors of downtown parking consumers: customers (for people who shop downtown), residents (for people who live downtown), business owners (for people who own a downtown business) and employees (for people who are employed downtown).
The number of respondents varies widely, Norris said: "Sometimes we'll get over 100; sometimes we're happy to get 20 or 30."
Thus, Rich & Associates offers the survey, which will be promoted on Jefferson City websites and those of the Downtown Association and other interested community entities, as well as face-to-face meetings with stakeholders and public meetings like the one scheduled Wednesday.
"We'll do our best to get information about how parking is affecting people on a daily basis," Norris said. "We'll look at the parking functions, the building inventory and specific questions like where the buildings are where people are working in relation to the buildings in which they park their cars."
In addition to being in Jefferson City all week, Norris expects to allow the survey and other efforts to collect data to continue for at least a month before conducting the analysis and preparing a report for the city.