A new pay-to-park program on the Newport Bayfront took effect on May 1 of this year, and an article appearing in the Lincoln County Leader last month indicated that city leaders believe this new program is meeting expectations.
There is a lack of available parking along the Bayfront due to the demand from tourists, local employees and fishermen. One of the primary goals when moving to a pay-to-park system was to encourage greater turnover, with the hope that it would be easier for people to find a parking space.
“We need to continue to monitor this (program) through a full season to really fully understand it, but I think it has been very effective in a few areas,” Newport Community Development Director Derrick Tokos said in an interview last month with the Leader. “It’s been effective at changing parking behavior with those regular users of the Bayfront.”
But a number of Bayfront storeowners are unhappy with the parking program, saying it has hurt business.
Ian Clayman is the owner of Newport Alpaca Shop, which has stores both on the Bayfront and in Nye Beach. “I think the idea is fundamentally good for the businesses. I think that they’re trying to create more turnover, and $1 an hour isn’t going to break anybody, in my opinion,” he said. “But it’s just that the signage is not really adequate — it doesn’t show you where the terminals are. It’s very confusing, (and) people come in all the time asking, ‘Where are the terminals?’” He also said there is no customer service number posted on the terminals, so when there are issues, nobody knows who to contact.
Susan Armstrong is the owner of Wind Drift Gallery as well as Gifts and Childish Tendencies on the Bayfront, and also Kindred Hearts at Canyon Way, about a block off of the Bayfront. She expressed considerable frustration with the parking program.
“It is definitely hurting business,” Armstrong said. “You hear all day long people try to park and they just say ‘Forget it, I’m going to leave.’ It’s just too hard. And locals, locals are not about to do this. They say, ‘Why would we pay to come down there.’”
Armstrong has a long history as a Bayfront business owner, having had Wind Drift for 29 years and Childish Tendencies for about 15. “When I first started, locals never came down here, and we’ve worked so hard over the last 20 years to get a really good local following, and they love us down here now, but now they won’t come. They’re like, ‘Why am I going to pay to do this?’”
She said it’s not necessarily the cost of parking, which is just $1 per hour. “It’s the hassle. It’s not easy to do. It is so hard. I have tried four different times now. I was successful once and that is because I literally went to the kiosk and put my card in it. But trying to do it remotely by texting the number, it never worked.”
Steve Palmer, the owner of Coastal Chaos at 602 SW Bay Blvd., said, “There’s a machine right in front of my store, 10 feet out in front of it, and I don’t know how many times I saw — before the summer — when it was raining and the wind’s blowing sideways and people are out there 20 minutes trying to get it to work.
“I’ve seen three or four of them standing there in a group when I open at 11 o’clock, and 20 minutes later, they’re still there, Palmer added. “And I hear people come in cussing, saying they’re never coming back to this town. They’re spending 20 minutes messing with that.” And sometimes while still trying to figure out how to pay for parking, they receive a ticket, he said.
Palmer said the attitude of visitors has also changed since the new program began. “They’re on a timeframe, so they’re quick shopping. They’re going in and out of stores quick, and they’re not lingering like they used to.”
Clayman admitted there was a parking problem in the past, “but no one complained. Even if the fish plant people were parked everywhere, they still found places and no one complained. And they were here, big crowds, it didn’t matter. We used own quite a bit of property down here, and my late father’s line was, ‘A parking problem is having too many spots and not enough people.’”
Armstrong agreed. “And that’s what we’ve got now. Now that summer’s over, there’s going to be tons of parking and no one using it mainly because of the hassle.”
Armstrong said some things are getting better. “They’re adding signage slowly, that’s one of the things that they told me. I think they need to re-work a lot of it. Maybe now that they know some of the things, they will.”
The fee for Bayfront parking is in effect between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m., seven days a week, from May through October. From November through April, people will only be required to pay for parking from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.
The merchants think that time from should be modified. “In my opinion, it should be done now, after Labor Day,” said Armstrong.
“This is just the beginning of their plan,” she added. “The next phase is Nye Beach, that will be next summer.”
When asked what she would like to see happen, Armstrong said, “Get rid of it. I can’t see any other good answer to be honest.”
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