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On Street parking rates and tickets increase (July 2008) Parking on the street, at a meter or Pay & Display station, is now $1.25 an hour. Parking ticket fines increase:
City Parking Garages offer Alternative Mode Commuter Option (AMCO) City garages offer a downtown employee parking program for alternative mode commuters who normally utilize an alternate mode of transportation (i.e. Regional Transit, carpool, bicycle, etc.) but occasionally need to drive to work (12 times per quarter or less). AMCO (Alternative Mode Commuter Option) allows employees who normally utilize an alternative mode of transportation to park at a discounted rate up to twelve times per quarter. MCO participants can park in Memorial Garage, Old Sacramento Garage, Tower Garage, City Hall Garage, Capitol Garage, Downtown Plaza West Garage, and Downtown Plaza East Garage. The City has an excellent map of all its garages on this page: http://www.cityofsacramento.org/dwntwn/ospr/ Where to purchase the AMCO passes Bring your valid California driver's license to the City of Sacramento Parking Facilities office at 915 I Street, Room 1214, Sacramento. A set of 12 all-day discounted passes will be issued. AMCO passes are valid for 12 months from the date of issuance. A maximum of 12 discounted passes can be purchased per customer per quarter. Each set costs $78 for all designated facilities and $96 for Capitol Garage. For enrollment and application, see Forms (AMCO Application (Complete Sections A, B, C, & D). City Studies Downtown Parking. In the next 10 years, the Sacramento Area Council of Governments (SACOG) projects 20,000 jobs will be added in the area bounded by the American and Sacramento rivers, Alhambra Boulevard and Broadway. About 5,000 new housing units will be added in the same area. This year, the city of Sacramento began studying how all those parking spaces in the city's core are distributed, and how to meet all the parking needs, while encouraging the choice to use alternative transportation. The goal is to create a master plan to manage it all. is becoming an issue. The city is evaluating enforcement, time limits and rates for city-controlled spaces in parking garages and at on-street meters. (Click here for the link to the August 2nd report to City Council.) Fran Halbakken, a city project manager, is in charge of the study that is looking at what parking is available, both public and private. Years of piecemeal policy adoptions and department reorganizations left the city without a comprehensive approach to parking, according to Halbakken. It has only been in the past year that the staff in charge of on-street parking and the staff in charge of off-street parking have been brought together under the Department of Transportation. The study began with an inventory -- city employees with clipboards counted every parking space - on street or off, free or paid, public or private. They counted about 64,000 spaces in the central city and Midtown. Enforcement, time limits and rates for city-controlled spaces are all under review.
Next came a series of invitation-only stakeholder meetings in February, April and June, with another set for August; participants have included the Sacramento TMA, neighborhood associations, churches, commercial parking lot operators, Regional Transit, retailers and large employers. Comments from attendees at the first meeting covered a broad range of concerns and requests.
Officials will host an open house in September to give the general public an opportunity to view the findings and voice their opinions. A final presentation to the City Council is targeted for October. Potential strategies under consideration by the city of Sacramento include
Parking policy is a hot topic among urban planners these days. This year Donald Shoup, a professor at the University of California Los Angeles, release his book "The High Cost of Free Parking". Shoup argues that cities shouldn't have any off-street parking requirements at all, and that curbside parking rates should be set at whatever the market will bear, with the proceeds going to improve the neighborhoods where the money is collected. He says cities should not force anyone to provide more parking than people are willing to pay for. Halbakken is familiar with that concept. "That is the basic philosophy in the industry: When you are over 85 percent occupied, you raise the rates to give yourself more room. But that can hurt nearby businesses, and the city has to keep them in mind as well. "There's not one solution that works everywhere," Halbakken said. Part of the solution is for Sacramentans to face up to the reality of a central city with limited space. Many people believe that parking is something they don't need to pay for; people for some reason think that parking is something that belongs to them," Halbakken added. The High Cost of Free Parking.
Donald Shoup, an economics professor at UCLA, has written a book that is
undoubtedly the most comprehensive study of parking ever undertaken in this
country. Shoup tells us that the minimum required number of parking spaces
for different businesses comes from a document called “Parking Generation,”
first published decades ago by the Institute of Transportation Engineers and
updated periodically. As Shoup puts it, local zoning officials who consult
Parking Generation “act like frightened supplicants bowing before a powerful
totem. ITE’s stamp of authority relieves planners from the obligation to think
for themselves because simple answers are right there in the book.” Then, since the amount of parking will be
reduced, allow commuters to take the value of a free parking space in the office
lot and trade it in for cash. They can use it on public transportation, and if
they don’t spend it all, they can keep what’s left over. Different versions of
this experiment have been tried in Denver, Dallas, Salt Lake City and San Jose. Parking Prices increase nationwide Sacramento's parking rates are increasing along with those of 48 U.S. cities surveyed by Colliers International, a Boston-based real estate services firm. During the last twelve months, the average rates for monthly reserved spots increased 2.7 percent. Monthly unreserved spaces increased 3.7 percent, and daily rates rose 7 percent. Colliers expects the trend to continue, as a result of a healthier business climate and rising employment nationwide, with an even greater spike in parking rates in 2006. Sacramento's average daily rate rose 100% between 2002 and 2005 because of an increase in demand caused by more workers and residents in midtown and downtown. Also, no new parking garages have been added to downtown's supply since 1999, while new high-rise multifamily and retail developments, such as the Safeway-anchored center on R and 19th streets, have been added, and new development has replaced some paid parking lots. A number of proposed high-rises could make parking even pricier despite the fact that all have planned parking garages. The average daily parking fee at municipal garages in Sacramento is $15. THINGS COULD BE BETTER . . .
THINGS COULD BE WORSE
The average amount charged nationally for a daily parking space is $14.04 The city says it parking garage revenue is about $18 million a year.
ParkSmart at the airport Starting February 1st, the automated parking system will take the guesswork out of finding a space at the airport and will make shuttle transport to the terminals faster. Entering and exiting the lots at Sacramento International Airport is rapidly becoming as easy and convenient for credit card customers as paying for gas at the pump. ParkSmart allows customers to gain entry and pay for their parking using only their credit card. Video screens guide all customers through the process and a call button is available to get assistance. ParkSmart installation began in the current Hourly A parking lot and is expected to be complete in all lots at Sacramento International Airport when the parking garage opens in September 2004. Are cash customers still welcome in the lots and can credit card customers still receive a ticket? Absolutely! Any customer can get a ticket from the machine and present it to the cashier when exiting. ParkSmart+ makes parking easier in Economy Lots. Starting February 1, a new strategy for finding parking Economy Parking Lot, ParkSmart+, will take the guesswork out of finding a space and make shuttle transport to the terminals faster than ever. ParkSmart+ introduces a new strategy for filling the lot that directs passengers to available parking. Parking personnel direct drivers to designated areas where shuttles are dispatched to quickly pick up passengers. Wait times will be reduced to approximately 15 minutes between shuttles and you can arrive at your terminal approximately 20—25 minutes after parking the car. Upon return, passengers will still be dropped off near their vehicles. By allowing all passengers to get off of the shuttles without loading more passengers on, the process is made more fast and efficient, improving customer service in the Economy Parking Lot.
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For more information, call the Sacramento Transportation Management Association (916) 737-1513 or E-mail Us Please note the TMA's new
mailing address: P O
Box 19520 Sacramento, CA 95819-0520
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