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Downtown Bend Parking Workshops, Today

BEND, OR -- The City of Bend will host a series of workshops Tuesday and Wednesday to kick off its effort to develop a downtown parking plan. Parking and Transportation Consultant Rick Williams will introduce strategies that have been used in other areas. He tells KBND News, "It’s just to learn about what are considered best practices in parking management, especially in cities like Bend that are vital and tourist destinations and have high volumes of parking activity; what the parking industry would say are the best ways to manage that parking." Williams calls his presentation "Parking 101."

 

He says the most successful strategies are built on a majority consensus, and he says Bend is on the right track. "It’s really getting that committed downtown parking advisory committee representative of interests in the downtown, to go through a series of questions on parking priorities: Who should park on-street? Who is the priority parker for parking on-street in the downtown? Where should employees park? How should parking in neighborhoods be managed? Who is the priority parker in a residential zone?"
 
But, one of the first things Williams says a city must determine is whether there is even a need. "The biggest concern in any city is first trying to identify whether there is or isn’t a parking problem. And, that’s why I think what the city of Bend has done well is in this project is allowing us to collect a lot of parking data over the next year. So, it’s being able to separate perceptions from reality."
 
Williams say all three workshops will feature the same presentation. The first begins at 8:30 Tuesday morning at Bend City Hall; the second is at 5:30 p.m. at Trinity Episcopal Church. A third workshop takes place at City Hall Wednesday at 11:30 a.m. For more information, visit the city's website

 

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