The city will assess parking in problem areas with the help of a consultant, including assessing future demand and evaluating parking fees.

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.City Council. adopted a resolution (AR-206-24) during its regular meeting on Oct. 15 awarding a $42,500 contract to New Brunswick-based THA Consulting for “professional parking assessment services.”

A nine-page proposal submitted to the city last month outlined the parking assessment of multiple areas “experiencing challenges and conflicts,” including:

• Commuters who park on residential streets rather than off-street commuter parking facilities.
• Residents of new large multi-family developments parking in adjacent neighborhoods instead of the designated project’s parking facilities.
• Commuters and/or employees of a commercial/industrial complex on East Hazelwood Avenue impacting on-street residential paring.
• Inadequate parking for residents of The Willows on Central Avenue, impacting neighboring on-street parking.
• Reduced commuter parking utilization of the city’s commuter designated off-street parking facilities.

Consultants will compile a parking inventory that will include on-street and public off-street facilities, perform occupancy counts within the study areas for a typical weekday, and assess future parking demand in the study areas. THA also will “quantify and confirm anticipated future parking supply and demand changes within the study areas, based on any new development, redevelopment of existing parking resources, and creation of new parking resources.”

The proposal includes evaluating the existing parking fee structure to “incentivize the wide use of City parking locations and generate revenue to support enhanced parking operations.” THA will outline parking price recommendations based on demand, location, users, length of stay, and parking fees of peer municipalities.

About five years ago, the then-Parking Authority authorized a parking assessment. that led to development of a comprehensive downtown parking plan.

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