KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Walker Consultants, hired by the city of Knoxville, has published a comprehensive 160+ page report detailing ways parking downtown and in Fort Sanders could improve.
"We wanted a holistic approach, understanding the growing needs of our community, understanding that the stadium's coming, understanding that UT's student body is growing," said Knoxville Mayor Indya Kincannon. "So to accommodate all of that, and just do the best practices. We're not the first city to experience growth like this. And we don't have to reinvent the wheel if you'll excuse the pun."
The beginning of the report states that "overall there is plenty of parking in the downtown area that accommodates today's needs as well as future development," but oversight across all parking operations, policy and strategy is critically needed.
In the report, Walker recommended eliminating time limits and increasing parking prices downtown and in the Fort Sanders area so that "pricing alone is used to influence behaviors." The city could do this by determining "high-demand" and "low-demand" streets.
Recommended rates in "high-demand" streets are $2 an hour, while parking spaces in "low-demand" streets are recommended to be set at $0.50 an hour.
Walker also recommended charging parking for seven days a week because hotel and event venues are generating high parking demand throughout the week — even on Sundays.
More "Pay-by-plate" meters were also recommended for more efficiency.
The consultants said the city should add more passenger-loading "Stop-N-Go" areas in busy places, like Market Square.
An increase in parking citations and fines was recommended to encourage that parking customers do not habitually park in violation of Knoxville ordinances.
"The current rate schedule does not adequately discourage undesired parking behaviors. For example, the fine for an Unpaid Meter violation is only $11.00, while off-street parking on gamedays is $20.00, so people who are aware of the current parking citation rates and find an available on-street parking space can illegally park on the street at a lower cost compared to parking in an off-street facility," the report said.
The report noted that the Market Street Parking Garage reaches parking occupancies over 90% approximately six or seven days a week per month, while the State Street Garage is only three blocks away and has much greater availability.
To help redistribute parking demand, Walker recommends raising the parking rate for the Market Street Parking Garage to $1.50.
"I imagine that we'll be examining them and making sure that we also take feedback, continue to take feedback from the business community, residents who live downtown, the hospitality industry, visit Knoxville and others, because we want to make sure that coming downtown is convenient and easy," said Kincannon. "And will that mean updating some of our policies, probably but we just want to make sure that we do it in a way that's consistent with equity, affordability, convenience and safety."
The city does not own the parking lots under I-40 and the James White Parkway — TDOT does. Since these lots will be near the future baseball stadium, Walker recommended Knoxville investigate the potential to sell event or monthly parking and charge an event parking rate of $10.
One Knoxville resident said he doesn't mind walking more to save money.
"Yes, for sure," said Joseph Magoun. "Definitely. I mean, always try to save a couple of bucks. Definitely."
Knoxville is not obligated to apply any of these recommendations and has not released a response regarding the report.
"This is just a recommendation and we may follow. We're going to study it and see what of the recommendations are something that we think works best for our community. I am committed to making sure that parking remains affordable and accessible for everybody, whether that's hourly workers who work in our retail and hospitality industry downtown, to everyday residents who are coming down to enjoy Market Square and the stadium and the Old City,' said Kincannon. "I welcome everybody to read it. I think people will be surprised by just some of the baseline information."
You can read the full report here.