There are three consultant reports about LB parking capacity and occupancy (the supply and spaces occupied), and solutions for better parking utilization. One consultant study shows us our parking occupancy is filled to 85% capacity but only 5% of the time. Another consultant study shows us downtown off-street parking occupancy is filled 80-100% in summer only, in winter it is 30-60%. Now a third consultant retained by LB City disputes these claims in a Parking and Transportation Demand Management Report (Jan 10 2023)* prepared by the Parking Management Subcommittee. The Subcommittee reports high parking occupancy all the time and recommends 11 new parking structures in 18 new parking lots from 23 locations studied.
"New construction public parking infrastructure is generally a long-term strategy. However, the Subcommittee also recommends that two significant infrastructure projects (new multi-level parking structures) be pursued in the medium-term."
The consultants and their reporting are:
IBI Group: Existing Parking Analysis & Recommendations for the Downtown Specific Plan Area, Mar 2017
RBF Consultants: Downtown and Laguna Canyon Parking Management Plan (PMP) 2013
City Council Parking Master Plan Subcommittee: LB Parking and Transportation Demand Management Report (Fehr & Peers Consultants), Jan 2023
IBI Group
Quoting from the study “Based on these observed occupancies and the
current public and private parking supply, which was further analyzed
according to the area’s land uses, the study resulted in three key
findings.”
“Key Finding #1: The City can benefit from reducing the minimum
required parking requirements for non-residential uses in the DSP area.
The overall actual built supply of parking spaces exceeds overall actual
demand.”
“Key Finding #2: Private parking spaces are underutilized. Parking
demand in the Downtown Specific Plan area is higher in public parking
spaces than in private parking spaces during both summer and non-summer
months.”
“Key Finding #3: The Downtown Specific Plan area attracts more visitors during the summer season.”
RBF Consultants
The Consultants summarize the parking occupancy of the downtown and Laguna Canyon areas. The parking capacity in available public owned parking spaces is Summer:1977 Winter:1547. From actual traffic counts the Consultants summarize the off-street parking occupancy in downtown as 30-60% in winter and 80-100% in summer. These results also do not justify a new permanent parking structure.
• Downtown On-Street Parking Occupancy
o Summer Weekend/Weekday: 80% – 100%
o Non-Summer Weekend/Weekday: 60% – 80%
• Downtown Off-Street Parking Occupancy
o Summer Weekend/Weekday: 80% – 100%
o Non-Summer Weekend/Weekday: 30% – 60%
• Canyon On-Street Parking Occupancy
o Summer Weekend: 80% – 100%
o Summer Weekday: 60% – 90%
o Non-Summer Weekend: 60% – 80%
o Non-Summer Weekday: 5% – 15%
• Canyon Off-Street Parking Occupancy
o Summer Weekend: 70% – 90%
o Summer Weekday: 40% – 70%
City Subcommittee
Notice the difference in conclusion from the Management Plan Subcommittee, in the parking and PTDMR report (Fehr and Peers) under Benefit to Residents page 39 says:
Centralized parking creates more incentive for visitors to pay for parking for the convenience, rather than park for free in a residential area further away from their destination. We can reasonably predict that individuals are often willing to pay for this amenity based on the high occupancy trends at the Glenneyre Street parking structure and other public parking facilities.
Under Parking Capacity and Occupancy the report warns readers with this caption of the Village entrance.
Locating available parking near a destination can be challenging ...... remain at near‐full occupancy throughout the peak period. Once these areas are effectively full, remaining available parking may be scattered and difficult to locate.
The Subcommittee then proposes the solution to over-demand for parking is to add enough parking spaces to hold peak occupancy under 85%, even stacked parking if necessary for a "park once" approach to avoid motorist inconvenience (page 45).
The conclusion from IBI was the existing built parking supply exceeded overall demand, asked why this conclusion was a contradiction Fehr and Peers had no comment (page 81). The findings from RBF Consulting are also in contradiction to the Subcommittee recommendations. A winter 30-60% occupancy is already below the 85% occupancy Subcommittee target, however the RBF results were not compared.
Two outcomes of the PTDMR recommendations were proposed.
(1) to reduce the impact of visitor and employee
parking in residential neighborhoods and improve the quality of
life for residents; and (2) to enhance mobility in the City’s
commercial areas during peak periods to benefit both residents
and visitors.
The first outcome to reduce parking occupancy under 85% will never
be achieved today due to induced demand for parking, any land-use
planner can tell you that. The second outcome suffers from the
same logic of car-culture; adding more car infrastructure to improve
mobility simply exacerbate car traffic in our LB Village. What
is NOT in this fabricated report: "Complete Streets Policy" does not
appear anywhere in the 141-page PTDMR. The keywords in the short-list "induced demand, multi modal, mode share,
transit" describing a balanced mobility plan to reduce parking demand does not appear anywhere in
the PTDMR.
In 141-pages the PTDMR has completely ignored the amortized costs of
financing, constructing, maintaining, operating and enforcing
parking structures. The Subcommittee and City Staff dream of
operating 1950 parking lots like a 2023 city ATM Machine without
analyzing life-time facility costs. DO THE MATH
as Laguna
Streets have done. Check these parking meter rates for 11 structures and decide if you would park there or in a neighborhood for FREE!
Consultants report the recommendations they are retained to produce. In this case the clear disagreement between three consultants is revealing, the Parking Management Subcommittee has an agenda to sell parking.
-LS
* A new revision June 13 2023 replaces Jan 10 2023 report.
