For many years past, the city has made parking in Marine Park Garage free for the month of December — but not this year.
Last year, when the new Downtown Transportation Center opened, it also was free in December. Both garages also were free in January because the new metered parking system was still going into place.
This year patrons of the garages will have to pay for December, just like any other month.
It isn’t clear exactly how many years the city has agreed to offer free parking from Thanksgiving to Dec. 31, but in 1998 the Assembly approved Marine Park Garage and “Egan Shoppers Lot” for that price with time limitations. Public testimony from that time indicated the parking offering for holiday shopping started two years prior.
“With our new parking system in which you buy a permit to park in the garage, one, it would be pretty difficult to provide free parking when people have already bought permits,” said City Manager Rod Swope.
The other reason for the change is because of the two-hour free on-street parking. That change was implemented with the new meters and Swope believes that’s sufficient for people looking to shop downtown for the holiday season.
Garages remain free during weekends and holidays, Swope added.
“In the past, with limited amount of time you could park on the streets, it opened it up to encourage people to come down and shop,” he said. “With two hours free parking anywhere in the city with another new garage that’s very inexpensive to park in, we decided to keep things the way they are, particularly given people who have already purchased permits. If we had it for free, I imagine they would want refunds.”
Swope said gaining back funds spent on building the new transportation center was not the reason for the change.
The bus area in Marine Park also was traditionally opened for free parking in winter. This year, the area remains closed off and unmaintained.
“I think there was maintenance and cost to plowing it and maintaining it,” Swope said. “With the new parking garage and existing old garage, there is plenty of parking available for people to come and use. Why should we open up a little lot for free, particularly when there’s a lot of cost to maintaining that?”
Jim Dillon, owner of Hy Tech, is not pleased with parking downtown.
Dillon said the downtown merchants are running out of safe, free areas to use. He alleges the state isn’t maintaining the freeport lot in front of the Coast Guard, the state has blocked off public parking in the Willoughby lot and now the city isn’t offering December free in the season of holiday shopping.
“What’s ironic is the two-hour downtown parking has been a real success,” Dillon said. “People come down here for just two hours. But it doesn’t help the people who work here. We’re still stuck with absolutely no place to park for more than two hours.”
City data on user downtown parking users shows decreasing numbers for people using garages. For Marine Park Garage, that looks like 30-40 percent occupancy in December and January last year. The Downtown Transportation Center garage had about 80-90 percent occupancy rates last year during those months.
When Dillon was asked why he was opposed to paying for parking, he said: “It’s a Juneau tradition. There is a reason why this is the last civilized place on the planet to not have parking meters.”
Dillon said merchants should be able to have a safe place to park without having to go on a major arctic trek.
• Contact reporter Sarah Day at 523-2279 or at sarah.day@juneauempire.com.
Comments (25)
Add commentAnd yet
two days ago it was reported that our mayor won some sort of prize. Guess it was for government service and not public service. Another reason not to go downtown or go for very short trips.
Once again...
Merry Christmas from the CBJ!
Ho! Ho! Ho!
Don't shop in town!
Swope clearly out of touch - The Grinch!!
This article states - "Swope believes that’s sufficient for people looking to shop downtown for the holiday season".
Yesterday I met two friends downtown for lunch and a little Christmas shopping. My lovely afternoon had to be cut short because of the two hour limit. I actually had to walk out in the middle of chatting with an employee in a downtown store. The store employee didn't know if there was the usual free December parking or not. I wanted to spend more time downtown, but was afraid I would get a ticket if I didn't run back to my car. Yes...I could have left, gone on the hunt for those elusive blue machines, and then tried to figure out how to add time with my credit card....but....by then the pleasurable time downtown would have been broken....just as it was by having to run back to the car.
It is unfortunate that the City choses not to support the downtown businesses, who, btw, collect sales taxes and file the necessary paperwork to help the city coffers.
It is definately time for Mr Swope to go.
Guess what I wont be doing?
Guess what I wont be doing? Going downtown other than the occasional walk for Pelmenis. Sure glad its easy to shop online...
December cruise ships?
Is somebody working on getting some winter cruise ships in here? The city seems to be making a concerted effort to make sure no locals are clogging up downtown.
no chance
Now you know why they're being slow on clearing downtown streets of snow. if they can get the street parking down to almost nothing being available (where it's free for 2 hours), you'll have to pay. That will really help downtown business sales. Maybe it would be better if we had winter cruise ships because you know the city wouldn't allow a drop of snow on any sidewalk downtown, plus the homeless and drunk problem would be dealt with more readily.....hmmm, almost like a real city acts. We can all dream
MORE REASONS
to keep shopping on-line! Geez you'd think once a year the CBJ could break down give back to those who live here and support Juneau!
Clear the street parking, then...
Black Friday parking downtown was atrocious. Spent 15 minutes of a 30 minute lunch driving around looking for a spot where you didn't either need 4x4 to get in and out or, in the alleys, where the snow hadn't been cleared to the point where someone could park and still leave enough lane for a vehicle to get through.
If CBJ is using free street parking as a reason to not offer it in the garages, then they need to keep the street parking clear. It hadn't been snowing the night before or the day of, the main thoroughfares were already clear. These areas should have been a priority.
well,well
Just another nail in the downtown business coffin.
Wonder why there are so few
Wonder why there are so few locally owned businesses down there and that it is almost all seasonal cruise ship owned businesses?
boot man
Well the city could always contract the guy who boots cars as to write tickets and protect that empty library lot. Oh wait they already do! Way to go keep ticketing people because that it was what a real productive city MUST do!
The Juneau parking fetish...
For some reason, Juneau has always had a problem dealing with parking issues in the years I have been living here. It would be worth the price of a monorail from the valley just not to hear people argue about parking their cars.
There were many people against using prime downtown real estate for a parking garage. The cost was prohibitive. The project was forced on us by the special interests who wanted the project.
Really poor management, to have massive parking garages and lots everywhere and then force people onto the snow filled streets just so they can have free parking. We all know it is just a matter of time before the 2 hour parking isn't free, either. The city spent over 20 million for a parking garage, and nobody can afford to pay to park their cars in it. The truth is, the millions spent on the parking garages were just for the special interests who profited by their construction.
Why does Juneau always have these kind of problems? If Juneau can afford to build all these structures, and if we have such a small downtown core in the winters, it seems to me they should allow down town workers to park free in the covered parking just to get them off the street, and for the convince and safety of the people who live here. Charge for parking in the summers, when demand is high. Eventually someone will have to think of the quality of life for the people who live here, it is not just about money.
Juneau is a place where mass transit really can be a solution. In my opinion, it is a shame that old thinkers spent so many tens of millions for parking lots instead of a monorail down Egan with connecting mass transit systems. It would really make a difference, to clear the downtown core of cars and make everything covered walkways, and revitalize our downtown area. But that would be too forward thinking. Urban planning, it seems, is a myth in Juneau.
Juneau would be a great place to live if it was more like Switzerland.
I went to the Public Market...
I went to the Public Market at Centennial Hall on Friday. It was absolutely packed. I could not find parking in the parking area at Centennial Hall, or the State Museum parking lot so I parked in the Willoughby lot where the new State Museum is going to be built.
When I was walking through the Centennial Hall parking area I saw a parking lot attendant attendant looking at cars. I asked him, "where are we not allowed to park?" He said that most of the Centennial Hall parking was for permitted state employees and that people attending the Public Market could not park there. I had no idea that state employees had to work the day after Thanksgiving.
I then asked him about the Willoughby lot. He said that was for permitted state employees as well and you couldn't park there either. When asked if Public Market attendees would be ticketed for parking in the Willoughby lot, he replied that he wouldn't be able to get to the Willoughby lot because he would run out of citations!
That dampened my mood for the Public Market and I did not stay long or buy anything, partly for fear I was going to get a ticket.
Elimination of the free holiday parking this year struck me as stingy. While many people like the free 2 hour parking, the new parking meters are not user friendly and confuse a lot of people. I think they have added another layer of unfriendliness for locals shopping downtown.
@Spoorprint: let's you and I
@Spoorprint: let's you and I petition the government for a light rail system. I bet AEL&P would be for the idea, too, because it would run off their electricity, and we all know how well they're able to convince officials to do their bidding.
Hmmmm.
Would SPF 100 spread around on the parking meter's Solar panels help?
just not enough to complain about
you know, it is funny to follow the pattern of downtown parking: first the DT businesses are complaining that there is no available parking for their patrons because their employees are parked on the street and play the 2 hour timed parking shuffle. Now the DT businesses got what they wanted with 2 hr free parking then pay as you wish, but... they are now complaining that their employees have nowhere "free" to park... gee how many pieces of cake do they want.
I think Swopes idea is good. the snow has made it more difficult, but there are more than enough free 2 hour parking spaces on the street that were not there before.
I guess if it didnt snow or we didnt have parking changes in Juneau, no one would complain about anything and all would be good. yeah right...
No Bandwagon for me
I can't believe all the whining. Have all of you forgotten or taken for granted the fact that you live in one of, if not THE best cities in America? Not me, not today. I love living here and if it costs a few bucks more, so be it. This is a great town and I, for one, am not going to bash it or the people that are trying to keep it great. Geez, go get some cheese to go with your whine! Are any of you ever happy? or maybe crying about everything IS your happiness? God bless America, Alaska and Juneau!
The parking fetish is even weirder than that...
How about, "Free Parking Everywhere Downtown All The Time!!!" (IF you can afford to buy yourself a hybrid vehicle.) With the disportionate number of rich people in town, they might have to have a limited number of such free parking passes... oh, wait a minute, most people who don't HAVE to come downtown don't go anyway.
If you have not read the new stuff planned for next year off the CBJ website, you would be saying this is a joke. No, the truth in Juneau is often stranger than fiction ever could be.
I am being lazy right now and not searching where I found that little tidbit, but trust me, it's there. Maybe alot of you are happy with that because you drive a hybrid vehicle. I just had to throw that in there, I knew that before I knew about this, and it just makes me want to go, "hmmmm." Or something like that.
Guess I won't be shopping downtown this year
I was actually waiting for the free, no-hassle parking to do some shopping downtown. I've already done most of my shopping on amazon.com, now I'll finish the rest online as well. I was going to send my mom a uniquely Alaskan gift, but I guess she is getting a toaster instead.
“It’s a Juneau tradition. There is a reason why this is the last civilized place on the planet to not have parking meters.” I can't count how many ways that statement is inaccurate. Juneau had regular parking meters. They took them out only because it complicated snow removal, and because the mechanisms got iced up. And in case you haven't noticed, WE NOW HAVE PARKING METERS. The fact that they aren't the old coin-op variety doesn't diminish the fact that they are parking meters. Juneau is the only civilized place on the planet that goes out of it's way to discourage people from giving our local businesses money while our garages are 70% empty. I know dozens of people, all of which know dozens of people (and so on and so on and so on), and everybody agrees this is messed up- all the while our elected officials tell us how much everybody loves it. It just proves how out of touch with reality they are.
More about parking.
Riddle me this: Who will these new parking boundaries *not* affect? (Maybe the people that made them up... Maybe?)
The last page of this link is the Willoughby Area parking boundary map, but there is a typo on the labeling, apparently, as to the designation of the dotted lines. I think it is pretty understandable regardless.
http://www.juneau.org/clerk/notices/documents/Ord2011-22b-Final_Amending...
I understand this to mean the 2-hour parking limit will extend into the dotted line area. (Note that it includes the village?!) I love the description in the ordinance:
"WHEREAS, with the new Downtown Transit Center nearby and existing pedestrian infrastructure, future development will have a mixture of transportation opportunities;"
Yes, pedestrians have plenty of transportation opportunities, over the piles of snow on the sidewalk during much of the winter between Main Street and Centennial Hall, for example.
It is a shining example of magical thinking: If they put it in writing and passed it as an ordinance, it must be so.
I think the people who live here need to reign in the people who are running the city, but that's just me.
Passerby and other complainers
The City of Juneau is currently recruiting for the City Manager's position. I am sure you have thrown your opinionated hat in the ring, right?
Parking Garages
Instead of "reigning in" the people running the city, why don't you become one of them. The city has plenty of boards and commissions that people can volunteer for. You could run for the Assembly. Don't throw stones!! Be proactive and be part of the solution. And if you're part of the 60% of the population that doesn't vote, you don't get to complain. Personally, I'll still go to lunch downtown and I'll still shop downtown. I don't think it's that hard to find a parking place downtown - found one at 1:15 p.m. today and 11:45 a.m. yesterday. Maybe I just have good parking karma.
@holeymoley
Or maybe it's the fact that it's been raining for several days, which has helped melt the snow and given the city time to plow more effectively?
I must have struck a couple of CBJ nerves, here.
To Common Sense and Holy Moly, I am saying, as well as others here, that we are going to have to pay to park pretty much ANYWHERE downtown, while the city wants to pass laws giving free parking to select individuals who can afford some pretty high-end cars. I have 'complained' about stumbling through deep mounds of snow on major arterial sidewalks piled there on the sidewalk by the city snowplows.
While I was doing all this 'complaining' I didn't even know about people not being allowed to park at Centennial Hall for the ANNUAL Christmas shopping day fair. I am certain 100% of the many people who were apparently ticketed for parking at the day-after-Thanksgiving event had no idea they were parking illegally.
It is even worse than I realized. Much worse. Sorry, I don't go downtown to go shopping for anything. They don't sell anything I want down there, most notoriously food for lunch. I was posting here about the parking meter setup being planned for the Willoughby area, except of course the only actual parking lots we have down there, which are now State permit parking only.
There is 'complaining' and there is just 'speaking up.' How many of us are fine with what is going on in this town? What percentage of us would rather change it? I do not know the answer yet.