City Staff chooses parking study firm

TAPS received notice that City Staff chose the parking planning firm KOA to do the parking study, which was one of our top picks! We were quite surprised considering how this battle has gone so far. We had provided our evaluation of the proposals to City Staff. We don't know if they listened or whether there were other deciding factors. The final decision will come when City Council votes on May 23, 2017. Some of you were prepared to protest at that meeting if they chose one of the firms that seemed intent on supporting city policies rather than evaluating those policies. It appears no protest is needed! We need to wait to give you details of the proposal until we hear whether the bidding process is indeed concluded. As we understand it, any of the 7 consultants that were not chosen can still file a protest. That could change the date for the final vote or even start the process over.

Timeline The settlement from our lawsuits provides a timeline for the parking study. After all is done including City procedures, the final study results will be voted upon by City Council late 2018. We don't know when the recommended programs will be implemented or policies changed.

Many new huge buildings will be approved before then, taking away parking lots and having low amounts of parking due to the Downtown Plan's low parking requirements. There are things that the City can do between now and then to prevent those new buildings from making our area's parking worse but we've received a great deal of resistance to them even looking at the options. We may still ask you to help by writing letters at key times. Continue to sign the petition, share, tweet, pass the word. Public Pressure is key.