It is February 2nd, a date that is famous around the country because the small Pennsylvania borough of Punxsutawney finds its parking system completely overwhelmed for a morning. Today, this community of 5,000 swells to as many as 40,000. One does not have to be a magical soothsaying rodent to predict that this will turn parking into quite a mess.
Punxsutawney is hardly alone here. In many of the smaller cities that Studio Davis works with, we observe a similar dynamic: The parking system is more than adequate to meet the day-to-day needs of residents, workers, and visitors, but gets completely overwhelmed a few times per year from special events. Predictably, this can lead to an overestimation of parking problems, and in the worst case, can compel the creation of new parking supply that will only go on to sit empty the vast majority of the time.
Fortunately, there are any number of strategies and approaches available to communities to manage special event parking demand. Often, simple things like wayfinding signs and clear signage identifying public parking can work wonders for guiding visitors to appropriate parking spaces. For bigger events, shared parking arrangements, event-specific permitting, shuttle services and the like can make use of otherwise underutilized parking.
When I talk about parking management as an exercise in placemaking, this is exactly why. More often than not, the event calendar is a defining element of a great place. Handling the increased parking demand is one of the biggest challenges that communities face in hosting these events, and helping communities plan for that is one of the most rewarding element of our work.