Bend reviews how downtown parking changes are working
(Update: Adding economic development director quotes)
More than three months after the city of Bend implemented several changes in the rules for downtown parking, the general consensus appears to be: So far, so good.
On Jan. 1, on-street parking enforcement times were extended by one hour, to 7 p.m.
Parking permits were changed from paper to virtual (electronic). People who work downtown and make less than $17 an hour are able to get a 50 percent discount off the parking permit fee.
“In the (North) Mirror Pond lot, what we’ve found is that employees rather than buying a permit were using the Mirror Pond parking lot to park all day,” Carolyn Eagan, city economic development director, said Wednesday. “So they were paying too much to park. They were paying $8 a day when they could be paying $10 for an entire month.”
The new ParkMobile app is now the only way to pay for parking at the Greenwood and Wall lot and on Irving Avenue. It’s also was made available for parking at the Mirror Pond lots and the Centennial parking garage.
“We also instituted a pilot program that allows people to pay to park in a handful of areas downtown using a mobile app,” Eagan said. “What we’ve found is we have about 5,000 individual users of that system just in the last three months so it came into effect in the very end of January — definitely some pretty quick adoption.”
On Thursday afternoon, the city’s Downtown Parking Advisory Committee will be meeting to discuss how the changes have been going.
“The great thing about the app is that you can use it real-time,” said Mindy Aisling, executive director of the Downtown Bend Business Association. “So if you’re shopping or if you’re having a drink with friends, you can get on your phone and just add more time to your parking, which is really convenient.”
“We’re kind of getting a feel of how people like it, how many people are using it, and then we’re going to review this pilot program and decide if we’re going to continue using this or if we’re going to change the way we do parking in downtown Bend,” Aisling said.
