I have a nice chat this morning with Herb Anderson. He's the CEO of Impark and Chairman of the National Parking Association. Amongst other things, we talked about how his company, and others, were working with cities and transportation agencies to assist in providing parking for those who use alternate means of transportation into the central cities.
In Chicago, for instance, they provide parking services from the METRA, the city's rapid transit train system. "If we provide good parking services it helps attract people to use the city's rapid transit system and improve life in the central city."
"Many think we operator's don't support these efforts, but we do. In fact in Philadelphia we provide shuttle services for off site employee parking for some of the city's hospitals such as Children's Hospital and University of Pennsylvania. They needed more parking for their patients, by moving employees off site, that became a reality. Parking operators think outside the box. We go far beyond the traditional business model of just providing parking management for downtown garages."
Herb went on to say that operators have a reputation of opposing plans that reduce downtown traffic, but that isn't necessarily the case. "Good parking management companies support many reasonable programs that provide for healthy downtowns. As cities grow traffic reduction plans in the form of public transit, rate increases to the on-street programs, and others will happen. We want to be sure we are there to help."
JVH
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