We’ve actually shown exactly that in our other renderings! I agree with you – would love to see this kind of thing in Raleigh. Even Charlotte’s got these kind of vendors selling art, soap, etc. in NoDa.
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15 posts were merged into an existing topic: Food Halls and Grocery Stores in downtown Raleigh
During the March 10 council meeting:
During the work session staff will present information on the current state of downtown parking as well as impacts to the parking ecosystem over the next 36 months. Additionally, staff with share options for lower-cost alternatives to downtown parking and information on a large development project that with impact the parking supply in downtown.
http://go.boarddocs.com/nc/raleigh/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=BM5LZJ57AD43
The doc in there has a lot of good recommendations so it’ll be interesting to see if they execute on any. Some good visuals:
it is recommended the City work with development partners to build additional parking
for public use in structured parking facilities that are built in conjunction with future development.
The study is encouraging the building of parking pedestals in future buildings. This is probably our future for the next decade, in my opinion.
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What’s frustrating to me about parking downtown is that state is sitting on a giant parking resource that is allocated to their employees, M-F 9-5, and largely sits idle otherwise.
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Chapel Hill is aiming to structure future reserved parking as 12 hour timeslots rather than 24, so that they can be used by residents or evening visitors. Are all of Raleigh’s 24 hour reserved currently?
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What is the large development project that will impact parking downtown?
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Wouldn’t Raleigh potentially have parking controlled by the city, the county (since Raleigh’s the county seat), and the state?
That makes Raleigh’s parking situation more complex.
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I assume the two blocks on S end of Fayetteville in front of the Performing Arts Center. They’re supposed to have underground parking tied to the convention center.
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Yeah. I guess l don’t understand that if the city is paying for parking on the project, how does the project affect the overall supply of parking downtown. Unless, the city’s payment won’t provide enough parking for the project. Or, there is another project not providing enough parking.
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If both blocks are 40 story buildings then a couple of floors of underground parking would not be even remotely enough parking spaces for what would be needed. So a stand alone deck would also need to be built probably or a pedestal parking deck. Details will depend on the size and scope of the projects.
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How about a system where if you rent a parking space 24/hr per day, but only use it 8-9 hrs per day while you are at work, a system (app) can be developed to rent out your space for short term parking while you are not there.
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Like those Hotel/Condo combos where the hotel rents your place out when you aren’t there - that is a creative idea!
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Yeah - kind of like Aribnb for parking.
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Having looked through the meeting materials, I assume they were talking about the presentation linked below. It gives some info on how all the ongoing and planned developments are set to affect total parking spaces in downtown decks. It’s lacking enough context for me to make much of it though. It seems to say that current downtown parking inventory for public use is ~10,000 parking spaces, and that 7,000+ spaces will be added by 2023. But they don’t say how many of those will be made usable to the public and how many will be set aside for building tenants.
My biggest takeaway is that we ahould anticipate a minimum of roughly 7,000 more cars on the roads daily in downtown by 2023 due to these new large decks alone. Last I read, according to DRA there were ~8k people living in DTR and ~40k people employed in jobs downtown. 7k seems like it will be a large increase in daily auto traffic.
Starts on page 8: https://go.boarddocs.com/nc/raleigh/Board.nsf/files/BMKQWH6B2017/$file/20200310RDOTDowntownParkingUpdatePresentation.pdf
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This might be semantics, but the increase in traffic is not due to these new large decks. The increase in traffic will come from people living in, working in and visiting these new buildings. The parking decks are a necessity for downtown Raleigh for now and probably for the next 20 plus years (if not longer).
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I have to wonder how many of these new workers will also be downtown residents?
Clearly a lot of folks will still drive to the new jobs, but my hope is that a growing share will walk, bike or take the RLine.
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Well, the idea is that people don’t have to get downtown in cars. We can’t expect everyone to stop driving all at once, but if we don’t start planning for a larger percentage of people coming downtown to get there by some other means than driving alone (walking, biking, transit) then downtown’s growth will add a lot more traffic.
The fact is that a car will not wind up downtown, nor will it cause traffic on downtown streets, if there is nowhere to park it. Whether that car’s owner still winds up downtown is a separate matter. Some of those people might say “screw it I ain’t goin there” but others might come anyway- by foot, bike, bus, or train.
I am of the opinion that it is OK to let parking supply start to tighten. Slowly, at first. But not too slowly. As parking tightens, the cost of leasing a space rises - “pushing” more people to look for alternatives. On the other hand, with the ongoing expansion of bus service, eventual train service, the addition of more residences in and near downtown, and the gradual improvement of bike facilities, the alternatives themselves are getting better, “pulling” more people towards them. The “push” and “pull” add up, and every individual has some tipping point where those combined forces will overcome inertia and get them to change/try an alternative.
We want to balance those forces so that the “pull” is stronger than the “push” - so downtown can continue to grow, while simultaneously lowering the drive-alone mode share. But the “push” is still necessary- without it, the growth of traffic from more people driving downtown will be unsustainable. Now, congestion can be a “pushing” force by itself, but that can not only choke off growth (like excessive parking costs) but also comes with significant negative impacts to quality of life. I’d rather just let parking cost more.
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I watched the broadcast of the council meeting where this was discussed, and the presentation felt like adding parking was a positive. I’d have to go back and watch it again, but I seem to remember that MAB had a more nuanced approach to the issue of parking supply.
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We seem to disagree. I think we need to build the means FIRST for people to come downtown via ways other than a car. Raleigh is woefully lacking in safe,efficient, and timely means to get downtown. And most people can’t even choose to live downtown because there is a lack of housing (much less somewhat affordable housing). Do we really want people choosing to not work or visit downtown Raleigh because of the lack of parking or too high rates? And there is also a lack of parking in that particular part of downtown. Seriously we would all love to not have as many parking decks or the building of new parking decks, but there is a reason that they are necessary and there is not a project of any reasonable size that will be able to avoid building more parking space for it’s employees, residents, and/or visitors.
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We are already providing that way.
(1) there is already increased bus service on many routes, and some streamlining/ reorganization of routes to make them more rider-friendly. Ridership is growing in response.
(2) there is already more housing downtown and in nearby neighborhoods that can be accessed on bike, bus, and foot
(3) more bike facilities are being added on an ongoing basis.
I am not saying that this adds up to Raleigh being Manhattan, but it does mean we have moved the needle a bit; a corresponding small, gradual tightening of parking is appropriate at this point.
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