Should Worcester eliminate minimum parking rules? Reports look at this, other questions

WORCESTER — A two-part study on parking in the city conducted by the Worcester Regional Research Bureau looks at how parking revenue has recovered in the post-pandemic era and discusses the possible hidden costs of required parking minimums on new developments.

The Research Bureau released two reports on parking a week apart: Feeding the Meter and Public Par(king).

The state of the parking spaces

The first report looked at revenue generated from city-run parking since 2021, the increasing popularity of paying for parking through the Passport app, and the usage of the five city parking garages, five municipal surface lots and two municipally managed lots.

There are a total of 3,313 spaces available in garages and 837 spots in city-owned or managed open-air lots, for a total of over 4,000 city-owned parking spaces.

The city owns the following surface lots at 96 Green St., 40 Highland St., 40 Salem St., 51 Millbury St. and 85 Water St.

The city also manages the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority/Amtrak lot at Shrewsbury Street and the Grafton Street lot.

There are five municipally owned garages: Federal Plaza Garage at 570 Main St., Major Taylor Garage at 30 Major Taylor Blvd., Pearl-Elm Municipal Garage at 20 Pearl St., Union Station Garage at 225 Franklin St. and Worcester Common Garage at 3 Eaton Place.

The Research Bureau conducted an in-person estimate of the occupancy of the garages and received additional data from the city on occupancy and transient revenues of its garages and the Francis J. McGrath Municipal Parking Lot at 40 Salem St. by the Worcester Public Library.

The Major Taylor garage is the most used garage, whether by monthly pass holders or daily parkers. The Federal Plaza garage is a close second. The Union Station garage had the lowest percentage of occupied spaces.

Longitudinal data showed that there was a dip in usage of the lots in January and July.

Over the 26-month period the report covered, average users per hour in all of the garages saw only a slight rise.

The report states that if it is assumed that most monthly pass holders are workers in and around downtown, it may mean the city is not seeing a year-over-year increase or decrease in the general number of workers downtown during the post-pandemic period.

While the bureau does not have full data for the pre-pandemic period, the report assesses there was likely a significant decrease in use from before 2020, citing information from the city Department of Traffic & Mobility that the Pearl-Elm garage was usually 80% occupied prior to COVID-19 and its reconstruction.

Paid on-street parking is primarily found downtown and in the Canal District. In 2021, single-space meters were replaced with a pay-by-plate model, using centralized kiosks and mobile app zones that are also used for the paved lots.

Two other parking lots on Lamartine Street and Madison Street are Polar Park event lots only.

Pay by app or by kiosk

The Passport app has seen an increase in use since its adoption — for every month since the app came into use, revenue it has generated has been higher than the same month the year before. The kiosks see slightly greater revenue than the app, but kiosk revenue has not grown year over year.

However, current 2024 parking data suggest a possible slowing of revenue growth through the Passport app, which the Research Bureau report notes could be a sign of plateauing adoption of the app and in the number of people parking.

On-street parking limits are enforced through fines intended to free up spots for other vehicles. Drivers who need more time are able to drive to another parking zone, but the report notes that the zone boundaries are not always very clear, and different zones may be located too far apart for some drivers to simply move.

The average time for on-street parking has remained stable since 2021, but each year has seen cars spend more time in the nongated surface lots that offer more flexibility with parking hours.

The growth in parking time may indicate more visitors coming to the city, the report states. Furthermore the two highest revenue-generating months for kiosk and app parking are June and August. The Polar Park event lots on Lamartine and Madison Streets are two of the top four lots for most time spent. The other two lots are the commuter rail-focused MBTA and Grafton Street lots.

The app and kiosk data show a reduction in parking in July and the fall months.

The cost of parking

The second report focused on the development of parking in Worcester, mandatory parking minimums within city zoning policy and costs to the city residents associated with parking.

The report details how parking has been an issue planners have grappled with since the 1920s, often vacillating between whether there was too much or not enough parking.

Worcester was also once home to the world's largest parking garage in 1971, the former Worcester Center Galleria's garage , which included the current Worcester Common parking garage.

Parking for new construction in many cities is dictated by mandatory minimums set by zoning in order for the demand for parking to not exceed supply. In Worcester, a single-family home requires two spaces.

In several cities, efforts have started to reduce or forgo parking minimums.

While Worcester has minimum requirements within its zoning code, the city does not have a uniform parking minimum — downtown has no parking minimum requirement and the commercial district that makes up the Canal District and Shrewsbury Street have reduced minimums.

The report claims that there may be costs to parking minimums that may not be entirely visible to residents.

Minimum parking naturally reduces the amount of space developers have to build, including additional residential units; the construction of lots and private garages is getting more expensive and maintenance fees can be reflected in housing costs.

The report cites Everett as an example of a city that reformed parking minimums to allow exemptions, stating this reform was one factor in Everett's housing boom relative to other Boston-area cities.

To address these costs, the report says the city should work to carefully balance existing parking and vehicles with new development growth, any rises in new vehicle ownership and the available service of the Worcester Regional Transit Authority. A possibility could be the reduction or elimination of parking minimums.

In addition, the report suggests other potential means to mitigate costly additional parking spaces, such as promoting shared parking agreements between developments and an effort to inform people about the city-owned garages that are underused.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Should Worcester eliminate minimum parking rules? Reports look at this, other questions