Parking puzzle remains in question

With decks and kiosks in place, city still working to unravel downtown parking quandary

Weekend security in the downtown Rome parking decks has been expanded to add additional hours from Thursday through Sunday to try to cut down on loitering and other questionable activities.

City commissioners also got their first look at some of the data being generated through the city’s parking enforcement program during a recent planning retreat.

The stepped up security detail has been asked to start patrolling the decks at 6 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. in an effort to reduce loitering and large groups of primarily young people.

Another parking-related issue discussed was one of parking tickets.

During the first review of parking data, Downtown Development Authority Executive Director Aundi Lesley reported that close to 600 tickets had been issued between June and December for people who have permits to park in the downtown deck or managed surface lots — but chose to park on-street instead and violated the three-hour limit.

Over 800 tickets were written to people who parked in the decks or surface lots but did not register their tags with kiosks.

People using the Parkmobile app to pay for their parking took a huge dive from last March to April when the pandemic set in, she said.

The numbers started to rebound monthly through last October when a second wave of COVID-19 reared up and numbers fell sharply. So far this year, they’ve begun to trend upward again.

Lesley said 9.7% of the people who used the Parkmobile app have actually gone back into the system and paid for extensions of their time downtown. Slightly more than a third of the Parkmobile users are spending, and paying, for more than three hours downtown.

The Parkeon kiosks at the Third Avenue deck, Sixth Avenue deck, and annex surface lot generated almost 7,900 transactions from June through December last year.

People generally stay, according to parking data, from three to four hours when visiting the downtown area.

Customers in the Third Avenue deck are typically parking for a little more than four hours of parking. The Sixth Avenue deck customers are generally staying for close to three and a half hours. The annex lot — used by many restaurant customers downtown — has an average stay about two and a quarter hours.

Lesley said she has asked the parking enforcement staff to issue more warnings to first-time violators as an education tool. The DDA has also published new parking material which will be distributed to first-time violators as well.

Commissioner Wendy Davis said she was looking forward to more specific data regarding on-street parking from the software associated with the license plate reader technology.

Lesley indicated that because the LPR technology reads so many plates on its roughly 15 to 20 minute loop through town, that it takes an exhaustive amount of time to sift through the data but that she would work to get commissioners a report more specific to Broad Street as soon as possible.

John Bailey Even with parking decks and downtown enforcement, parking on and just off Broad Street remains tight throughout the week. While upper decks of many of the downtown area’s parking decks remain open, the lower levels are often packed.

There’s no shortage of paid, and free parking, in Downtown Rome. This kiosk is in the parking deck near the Forum. Others, like the one behind Harvest Moon, recorded over 7,900 transactions between June and December of 2020.

Aundi Lesley

John Bailey With packed parking spaces visible down Broad Street, a mother and her children walk past a sign showing points of interest in the Historic Downtown area.

John Bailey Parking in Downtown Rome is at a premium especially as people begin to leave from work and head downtown for dinner or drinks.