Tag Archives: Parking

City of Peoria, Parking

The parking paradox

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Slate magazine recently published an article about parking. I found this paragraph particularly interesting:

Instead of requiring minimum parking thresholds, parking maximums should be set. As Norman Garrick and Wes Johnson have pointed out, the goal of meeting parking demand in cities is an elusive, ultimately self-destructive quest. As they note, people complain of Hartford, Conn., that there “is not enough parking,” when in fact nearly one-third of the city is paved over with parking lots. “The truth is that many cities like Hartford have simultaneously too much and too little parking. They have too much parking from the perspective that they have degraded vitality, interest and walkability, with bleak zones of parking that fragment the city. They have too little parking for the exact same reason—they have degraded walkability and thus increased the demand for parking.”

Want an example of that right here in good old Peoria? I went out with some friends last night to Cold Stone Creamery in the Shoppes at Grand Prairie. It’s a popular place located in a little strip-mall out-building. There are a number of entertainment and dining options in this area, but none that were walkable from this little dessert place.

For instance, practically across the street is the Rave theater, and not too far away are restaurants like Steak ‘n Shake and Johnny’s Italian Steakhouse. Theoretically, one should be able to park once, get dinner, walk to the movie, and walk over to Cold Stone Creamery for some dessert, then get back in their car and leave. But the development is simply not designed to accommodate that. No one would even think of doing it because of all the obstacles. Sidewalks end, streets are excessively wide, parking lots are huge, and berms provide a visual cue that says, “you’re not really supposed to walk here.” Instead, the clear expectation (and actual practice of most people) is that you would drive from the Steak ‘n Shake parking lot to the Rave parking lot, and finally to the Cold Stone Creamery parking lot.

They have, as the Slate article says, “degraded vitality, interest and walkability, with bleak zones of parking that fragment the [development].” I like the Shoppes at Grand Prairie because it’s like the whole city in miniature — a little analogy of the City’s transportation deficiencies.

Parking requirements have been relaxed in the Heart of Peoria area, but parking minimums need to be reduced throughout the rest of the city. Too much parking only exacerbates the problems of providing sufficient public transportation. Large lots lower density, and public transportation requires high density to be sustainable. It’s the parking paradox.

Hat tip: Eyebrows McGee

City of Peoria, Parking

Ticket booths and gates to be removed from Riverfront Village

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The Issues Update this week included this tidbit of news about the parking lots at Riverfront Village. It looks like they’re going to be taking out the ticket booths and gates that have gone unused for the past four years:

The City owns and operates several parking lots on the Peoria Riverfront. These are the Michel Bridge East and West Surface Lots, Edgewater Lot and Liberty Lot, which are collectively known as the MEL Parking Lots. These lots are controlled by means of three sets of ticket booths and gates, which are accessed from Water Street.

Since 2006, the MEL Lots have been posted 2-hour free parking in an effort to promote short term parking for customer use. (Parking meters and permits are available in these parking lots for long term parkers.) During this time, the ticket booths have been vacant and the gates lifted. Complaints have been received from business owners in the area who feel that the ticket booths sometimes confuse new visitors trying to park in the lots.

These facilities have been left in place in case the City would reinstitute an hourly charge in these lots. If charges were to be reinstituted, staff feels the best way to implement this would be through an unmanned area parking system where patrons pay at kiosks. It seems unlikely that the City would choose to provide manned ticket booths for this area in the future. Since these facilities appear to no longer serve a purpose, they should be removed to create better access to the Lots and to remove any confusion by the motorists.

The Public Works Department, using in-house labor and equipment, plans to remove the ticket booths and gates and to provide clearer signage for these lots. The first priority will be to remove the gates at the foot of Liberty Street to allow two-way access to the Lots during the Water Street construction. The rest of the ticket booths and gates will be removed over the course of the summer, as scheduling allows.

City of Peoria, Museum Block, Peoria County

Museum odds and ends

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I’ve gone to several town hall meetings regarding the sales tax referendum, so I’m familiar with the presentations now, and I’ve heard a lot of the same questions. But at last night’s town hall meeting at Northwoods Community Church, I actually learned some new things. Not all of these items are new information — some of it I probably should have known already — but they were all new to me:

First of all, I found out that the Caterpillar Experience will not have free admission for the general public. Mark Johnson of Caterpillar explained that employees/retirees of Caterpillar and their guests will get in free. But if you don’t want to hit up your Cat friends to get you in, or if you’re a tourist/visitor from outside the Peoria area, you’ll be paying $5 for adults and $2.50 for children under 12. I was very surprised to learn this, especially in light of my recent trip to Moline to visit the John Deere Pavilion, which is free for everyone.

Second, it was stated last night that the City of Peoria will own and operate the underground parking deck, and that the parking will not be free. Mr. Johnson stated that the City theoretically could offer free parking, but that they would probably charge the same rate as other City-owned parking decks. Just what the City needs — another money-losing parking deck. It’s worth pointing out that the museum could also offer free parking to their patrons. All they need to do is validate parking tickets and then pay their patrons’ parking fees for them. It’s also worth noting that patrons of Lakeview currently have free parking at the existing Lakeview campus.

Finally, it was stated that — if the referendum passes and the museum is built — the Peoria Riverfront Museum (PRM) would take over ownership of the historic houses currently owned by the Peoria Historical Society. I don’t see how the PRM could afford to own, operate, and maintain those historic houses when the county doesn’t feel PRM has adequate funds budgeted for capital maintenance on the museum building. Living in a 105-year-old house myself, I can tell you first hand that maintenance is not cheap, especially if you want to maintain the historical integrity of the structure.

There were a couple other notable items from last night’s town hall meeting, but I’ll save that for another post.