New: Discussion of the 5-story garage by the City Council has been postponed. See below.

What we're about

The Committee for a Vibrant Downtown was formed in July 2008, when we became concerned that plans were moving forward to construct a new five-story garage in Downtown Santa Cruz on the parking lot at Cedar and Cathcart Streets—the site of the current Downtown Farmers' Market.

We believe such a “solution” to any perceived parking shortage unfortunately represents counter-productive 1950s-era thinking, and that greener, less costly and well-tested strategies exist—involving Parking Demand Management—and should be pursued instead.

Rick Longinotti is currently our spokesperson. If you would like to talk with him about this issue, feel free to call him at (831) 425-7581.

An update, and what you can still do

The Santa Cruz City Council was originally planning to vote on initial funding for the construction of the garage on September 9. Subsequently this date was delayed to September 23. Now we have been recently told by Mayor Coonerty and others that all discussion of the garage issue has been put off until after the November 4 election!

It would appear that our efforts have been noticed. However, we're not quite there yet, since there is still strong interest among some to construct the new downtown garage, and the issue is likely still to come before the Downtown Commission and the City Council.

Hence, please continue spreading the word, and ask your friends to please add their names to our online petition. We'll forward all names we receive (along with any included comments) to our City Council. To add your name, click here.

We have also prepared a traditional petition that can be download by clicking here. Print it out and use it to gather signatures! Print the second page (which has only text) on the back of the first page.

Finally, take the time now to write a note to our City Councilmembers. Urge them not to commit to the garage, but to direct staff to move forward with Parking Demand Management strategies instead. (See below for details as to what that means.) You can write to our City Council members by clicking on this link.

A Santa Cruz City Public Works Staff Report describing some of the financial details of the garage was presented to a joint meeting of the City Council and the Downtown Commission on July 24; you can grab it here.

Details of the proposed 5-story garage

The proposed garage is slated to occupy the current parking lot at Cedar and Cathcart Streets—the parcel with the “4” on it in the map at the left. (The gray area is Parking District 4.)

The image at the right is a recent photo of our Wednesday afternoon Farmers' Market—the space that would be occupied by the proposed garage. The garage would provide 610 new spaces that would replace the 126 spaces on the current lot, so construction of the garage would provide a net gain of 484 parking spaces.

Construction of the garage is estimated to cost $21 million, with a total debt service (over 30 years) of $42 million. Thus each new net parking space would cost nearly $87,000.

Contrary to the City's General Plan, the planned-for garage subsidizes auto use rather than other transportation modes.

The planned-for garage would make Cedar Street the “back alley” of Pacific Avenue, and would commit funds that otherwise could be invested in Downtown prosperity.

The planned-for garage would require relocation of the Downtown Farmers' Market—to a site yet to be determined.

Details regarding greener solutions

Greener, less costly solutions, involving Parking Demand Managment, are well tested and recommended in the City's 2003 Master Transportation Study, but have not been considered.

Short-term customer parking would receive priority over all-day parking.

Incentives would be provided to support the use of alternatives by our Downtown workforce. Such incentives would normally include the providing of bus-passes, emergency vouchers, credit for ride-sharing, bicycles and the providing of “parking cash-out”. (Parking cash-out was implemented by Texas Instruments in Westside Santa Cruz, and in 2000 it eliminated some 16,000 trips. A 1997 study of eight Southern California sites that implemented parking cash-out programs found that vehicle trip-reduction averaged 11%. Applied to Downtown Santa Cruz commuters, this would be a reduction of over 500 trips.)

The cost of implementing Parking Demand Management would be much less than the cost of building the proposed garage—we estimate approximately $1250/year per commuter, which could be funded from parking meter and parking permit revenues.

The lower cost would allow development of the lot location to enhance the Downtown experience—it could be a Town Square serving not only the Farmers' Market but also many of our other Downtown events.

References

1. An article by David Fields and Tom Brown that describes how similar issues were dealt with in Ann Arbor Michigan appeared in the May 2008 issue of Planning, the monthly publication of the American Planning Association. Here is a copy of that article.
2. On Ann Arbor's Downtown Development Authority website, the complete text of the Ann Arbor Downtown Parking Study is available. Here is a link to that webpage. In particular, have a look at “Chapter 5 – Final Recommendations” of the “Phase II Final Report”, where there are extensive details relating to Parking Demand Management.
3. The City of Ventura has adopted a “Mobility and Parking Plan” that incorporates Parking Demand Management strategies. This plan is also worth reading, with much useful information. It is available here.
4. Paul McGrath's RideSpring program has worked effectively with many employers, including the City of Santa Cruz and the County Government Center, to reduce the use of cars for commuting, especially single-occupant vehicles. To see how it works, click here.

Download and hand out our brochure

We have a brochure available for you to hand to any others who may be interested in this issue. It's a pdf that may be printed on the front and back of a single sheet of paper. It's right here. feel free to grab it and print a few copies to hand out. It pretty much duplicates the information on this web page.