Parking in College Towns

Parking is an urban issue affecting many cities as they grow and develop. Parking in college towns has been an increasingly difficult issue to tackle. The growing demand for parking is straining available resources and is making it difficult to venture to many downtowns. There is often a greater lack of transit access in college towns compared to big cities. Managing the availability and price of parking, especially in crowded areas, can reduce congestion. Encouraging transit and carpools reduces the number of vehicles on major roads and city streets. Some college towns have proposed different ideas to try and combat the parking issue, while some are dealing with expansion projects that could make parking even worse.   
University of Iowa: 

• Iowa City has a lot of options when it comes to parking, including on-street metered parking, garage parking, and various parking ramp options. Between the different parking ramps, there are 3,635 parking spaces available. The first hour of parking is free on all ramps, and then an additional two dollars per hour after. Metered parking spaces downtown have a limit of one to two hours to encourage more turnover. As you move further out from downtown, there are parking spaces with longer meter times available. However, there is a limited number of parking spaces. Couple this with the issue of the city not being walkable during parts of winter and the lack of bike lanes and the need for more parking becomes clearer. The city’s transport system is also not super reliable as they do not operate on Sundays.  In 2022, Iowa City introduced a higher rate for parking in downtown areas to pay for its fare-free transit program. This program is free for everyone. In 2025 the city, once again, raised metered parking --this time to three dollars.  This latest increase has caused concern with residents indicating that, while they understand the need for a price increase, they worry about affordability and the impact it will have on businesses. 
  
  University of Michigan: 
• The city of Ann Arbor, Michigan, has a total of 8,000 parking spaces spread out between eight parking garages, fourteen surface parking lots, and street parking. There is a total of 2,100 on-street metered parking spaces. Metered parking is enforced during peak hours from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. You do not have to pay for parking on Sunday. The city has seen some changes since COVID and is slowly drifting away from daytime downtown parking spaces to higher evening parking spaces. The city has also seen a decrease in on-street parking due to increased bike lanes, transit stops, and loading zones.  The city eliminated its parking minimums to allow new housing and commercial space to be more affordable. This idea also helps by making the city more walkable and environmentally friendly because they are filling lightly used parking lots and reducing asphalt. Making it more walkable decreases the need for more parking. 
  
  University of Wisconsin: 
• There are many options for parking in Madison, Wisconsin. There are various parking garages, on-street metered parking, and motorcycle and moped parking. There are also areas called “park and walk” where the rates are cheaper and encourage people to walk to their destination rather than park right downtown. These spaces have a 10-hour limit.  There are also Madison Metro and BCycle as alternative modes of transportation to discourage driving downtown. The city is currently working on bike path construction and trying to make biking more efficient and quicker. The city has also recently constructed new protected bike lanes to further encourage cycling as a mode of transportation for more people. Walking as a form of transportation is also being pushed in Madison. The city was ranked as the second safest city for pedestrians out of the largest 101 metropolitan areas across America. The city has recently started pursuing a new development opportunity that will be a mixed-use project in place of the State Street Campus Garage that will contain an intercity bus terminal, a public parking structure, ground-floor retail, and student housing. The project is currently in phase 2, which is developing approximately 213 student housing units and is expected to be completed by June 2026.  
• University of Illinois: 

• Champaign, Illinois, has a population of 89,114. There seems to be an issue with parking downtown, with too few parking spaces for people who live or work downtown. Parking is free all day on Saturdays and Sundays, and downtown, payment is required Monday-Friday 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., as those are the peak parking hours. There are strict parking regulations in Champaign due to street parties in the parking lots in 2021. This resulted in parking bans and areas where, after a certain time, there would be limited parking. This has caused some issues with businesses as people are leaving early because of the strict parking regulations and the limited parking spaces available. There have been talks about building a second parking garage, but there is still the issue of people not wanting to walk a long distance to where they are trying to go. This is due to safety issues of walking potentially 20 blocks at midnight, and the fear of getting mugged or something dangerous happening to them. In December 2024, the city started offering free two-hour parking for just the month of December to encourage people to go downtown and boost the local economy.  In 2024, the city approved a Downtown Plaza Construction project. This project will be split into two phases and will include various features, including improved access to the public parking lot nearby. Phase One began in July 2024 and is expected to be completed in May 2025. Phase two is expected to begin in 2026 and be completed in 2027. As of right now, the city does not know the economic impact the plaza will have on the city. 
  
  
  

According to the City of Bloomington Open Data, there are 1,727 parking spaces in garages and 7,050 enforced parking spaces in Bloomington. You have to pay to park Monday-Friday from 9 A.M.-9 P.M., and it is free on Sundays.  There is no shortage when looking at parking downtown, but the system is becoming strained, and localized shortages exist. The impact on parking has been significant, with impacts concentrated in the Trades District and around the Monroe County Convention Center. The area that is the most heavily occupied includes the parking facilities between 3rd and 6th Streets. Furthermore, in many residential neighborhoods, the amount of parking permits issued exceeds the number of spaces available.

With the Convention Center expansion, many are worried about parking and whether there will be enough to meet expected increases in demand. Capital Improvement Board President John Whikehart said that between the lots the convention center will own and the fourth street garage, there will be 970 parking spaces, and the convention center would never have 1200 people coming to one event dinner with 1200 separate cars. There was also a proposal by the host hotel that considered underground parking on top of four parking garages, three surface parking lots, and parking at the former Bloomington hospital site. He acknowledged that there may need to be some creative measures taken in the future to address parking, but that there are always shuttle services.

A study by the Desman Design Management Group brought some suggestions on how Bloomington could improve parking downtown. Some suggestions include improving the wayfinding to and within off-street parking facilities. This would require additional signage to direct drivers to parking. The signs should be placed in high-traffic areas such as Kirkwood Avenue, College Avenue, and Walnut Street. Another idea is to change off-street parking to be enforced at least as long as on-street parking. This change will provide consistency and prevent people from getting away with not paying because they left after ‘closing’. Reducing the number of reserved parking spaces in the garages could also help increase the number of parking spaces. The practice of reserving parking spaces often leaves most of them empty, while the rest of the garage is full. Since the 4th street garage is too expensive to maintain over the long term, and there is a possibility that additional parking capacity will be needed to satisfy the needs of new developments, the city could consider demolishing the garage and replacing it with a larger, better-designed garage. While it is expensive to build a new garage, the city must have a long-term plan in place before hundreds of thousands of dollars are sent to repair the 4th Street garage. In the meantime, there are several options to improve parking efficiency downtown, such as adjusting the price of parking garage permit rates to balance demand and cover operating costs, adjusting on-street meter rates to increase turnover, and establishing a reserve fund for parking. All these ideas would improve parking efficiency downtown and make it easier for people to find parking as the demand for parking continues to increase. 

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