Reports

Parking

Second downtown parking survey

In April of 2008, B-TOP did two studies, one of the on-street parking on the square and the other was a repeat study of the occupancy of the 3 city parking garages, but this time we also included the new IU parking garage and the convention center surface parking lot. Click here for the slides

The on-the-square study was done on Wednesday, April 2 from 7:30am till 1:00pm. This study used a sample (about 1/4) of the total spaces on the square -- the East side of the square only which is comprised of 28 spaces total, 18 angled space on the Courthouse side, and 10 parallel spaces on the Malibu Grill side of the street. The first two slides of the attached PowerPoint are from this study.

The other study was administered from April 14 to April 20. At approximately 5:00am, 10:00am, 2:00pm and 9:00pm for one week, we inspected these garages and counted and mapped the occupied spaces in each garage/lot. Some of these graphs contain the occupancy found in a similar study from October 2006.three downtown Bloomington parking garages.

Downtown Parking Garage Survey

B-TOP members surveyed three downtown Bloomington parking garages to determine usage patterns over a week in fall of 2006:

• The B-TOP 2006 Downtown Parking Garage Report
• A one-page summary of the economic impact of 0.8 parking spaces per bedroom in Smallwood.
• A what-if description of the impact of no parking spaces in Smallwood.

The city responded by hiring Walker Parking Consultants to perform an expanded survey. In February 2007, they produced their draft parking report (external link). We provided a B-TOP response to draft parking report.

Downtown Parking Plan (DRAFT: June 18, 2007)

B-TOP has developed a Parking Plan for Downtown Bloomington to address the immediate need for improvements in downtown parking policy. In particular, this plan specifies how parking meters should be used (where, when, price, etc.) and how parking garage spaces should be allocated. It implements most of the suggestions of the Walker draft report.

B-TOP presented the parking plan to the mayor and city council. They revised the plan to substantially decrease the cost of parking and increase the subsidy on parking, citing "psychological concerns." They are aware of the fact that by decreasing the cost of parking, they will cause increased demand and reduce our future ability to make reasonable parking choices. They don't care, and passed the revised plan on July 11, 2007.