Thread by @shayshinecastle

OK, moving onto parking changes. Boulder is in the middle of a big overhaul of policies and prices.

Tonight is just a couple of things: increases in costs for neighborhood permits, fines and city spots. documents.bouldercolorado.gov/WebLink/DocVie…

Already dropped this link earlier, but you can read more about those here: boulderbeat.news/2021/10/23/bou…

The highlights:
- Resident permits will increase from $17 to $30 per year in 2022, $40 in 2023 and $50 in 2024. Staff anticipates that the program will start to pay for itself by that time; additional increases will be reviewed by council.

More than 3,400 households across 13 “zones” use the NPP.

The city is pausing the creation of any more NPPs until they can study things, like parking occupancy, demand, supply, access, etc. Then they'll establish eligibility and priority criteria.

Commuter permits (for parking in neighborhoods) will increase from $100 to $105 per quarter ($400 to $420 annually) next year, then $110 in 2023 and $115 in 2024. The permits may go up in price by $20 per year thereafter to achieve cost recovery or beyond.

On-street parking will rise from $1.25 to $1.50 per hour starting in January. The city will keep studying “dynamic pricing” — rates that fluctuate with demand — for a future recommendation.

Boulder owns and manages 33,200 public spaces citywide: 30,500 on-street, 2,700 off-street.

Rates in the city’s five parking garages will stay the same ($1.25 per hour) to encourage off-street parking, but Boulder is doing away with graduated rates (in which the cost goes up after a certain amount of time). Any stay of longer than six hours in a day will cost $15.

A successful $3 flat rate for downtown workers, between the hours of 3 p.m. and 3 a.m. will be extended.

Weekends and holidays will still be free in garages.

Boulder *is* studying whether or not they should charge for garage parking on weekends, but a decision on that is TBD.

Also, the city *does* have some free 15 min or less parking spots. The new pay stations should be better at letting folks know about that (I def didn't).

Lastly, parking fines may get costlier, with the base rate for most increasing from $25 to $30.

Subsequent violations will be more expensive, too: $45 for the second ticket and $60 for the third, within a year of the first violation.

Any parking violation that impacts other modes of transportation (like leaving a car in the bike lane) will automatically result in a $60 ticket.

Also something I didn't know is what the city offers for low-income folks, RE: parking.

Subsidies for qualifying residents of Neighborhood Permit Parking (NPP) zones
- Low-income residents could receive subsidies of between 30-75% of permit costs

And these things:
- Free Eco Passes are available for all full-time employees of biz downtown, Uni Hill, and Boulder Junction.
- $1.25 permit per day at the Alpine-Broadway Garage (via 20-day pass for employees of downtown biz)

I don't anticipate much council discussion on this. They've been briefed twice (in January and June) and had no comments/qs on first reading for this.

We do have a public hearing, tho. Prob also sparsely attended. There was a ton of public engagement on this. (Not that Boulder's ever let that stop them from showing up for things they are opposed to.)

Actually, no public hearing bc the one person who signed up isn't here.

Young: "I'm happy to see we're taking (parking updates) in steps, to make sure they're well thought-out and equitable."

Brockett: I remember first talking about it when I was on Planning Board nine years ago.

9 years to increase parking by 25c per hour and $13/year in neighborhoods.

Nothing encapsulates Boulder so perfectly as that.

Unanimous vote to adopt those changes.

@threadreaderapp please unroll. Thanks!