The Downtown College Park Parking Situation: A Business Owner's Perspective

A couple of months ago, when I was visiting some of the locally owned businesses downtown, to give them information about the College Park Neighborhood Business Alliance (CPNBA), I heard a few complaints from the business owners about the parking situation downtown. Their main concern was that customers were getting tickets while waiting in line to pay for their parking.

I relayed that concern from the business owners to Terry Schum, the Director of Planning, Community and Economic Development for the City of College Park. She told me that her understanding was that it was a training issue, and that the meter readers had been instructed to check the pay stations before writing tickets. That sounded perfectly reasonable to me, and I thought, "problem solved!"

Apparently not.

When the CPNBA survey went live in September, I started to see a lot of complaints about the parking situation. I passed the complaints on to some city staff and several city council members via e-mail a few weeks ago, and as of today I have heard back from only one of them. Granted, I had some e-mail issues right around the same time, so it's very possible that others responded, and I didn't get the e-mails. So if you're one of the folks that responded, and you haven't heard back from me yet, please re-send! And if you're one of the folks that just ignored that e-mail, I would appreciate a response so I can pass it on to the affected business owners. 

Since the parking situation was obviously not resolved, I decided to get some more information about the problem. I recently spoke with Nomie, the owner of Krazi Kebob, to get a business owner's perspective of the parking situation in downtown College Park.

First of all, if you haven't been to Krazi Kebob, brave those meters and go! The food is pretty awesome, and the prices are reasonable. I will do a profile on the restaurant in the coming weeks, and I may just have to walk over there for lunch if this rain ever stops.

Now, back to the parking issue. When I called Nomie to let him know I was on my way to his restaurant, he asked if I wanted him to pick me up so I didn't have to deal with the parking. I told him I wanted to drive over, , since I had only used the pay stations a total of three times previously, and those times were at the Old Town shopping center. 

When Nomie and I sat down to talk, I asked him what he thought about the parking system in the lot outside of his business. He smiled, shook his head, and said, "The customers hate it." He further explained that because the customers hate it, he is losing business. Customers have told him that they love his food, but won't come back because of the parking.

Nomie told me he recently witnessed one of the meter readers arguing with a couple of people who were standing in line to pay for parking. The meter reader was apparently writing a ticket for a vehicle, and the owner of the vehicle, who was standing in line to pay for parking, spotted her and yelled to stop. The meter reader responded that because the ticket was already written, there was nothing she could do.

I wonder if that meter reader bothered to look and see if anybody was standing in line to pay for parking before starting to write that ticket ... Isn't that what they had been instructed to do?

Nomie also said that he has called Jim Miller, the Parking Enforcement Manager for the City of College Park several times to discuss the problem. He said he has left messages for Mr. Miller, but hadn't heard back from him yet.

When Nomie did speak with someone else from the city about the tickets being written for customers that were standing in line, he was told that when that happens, the customers can go over to to explain what happened, and the ticket would be overturned. I haven't verified that with the city yet, but even if that is the case, wouldn't that require spending a lot of time and effort, and having to pay for parking again (and possibly getting another ticket while waiting in line to do that!), to overturn a ticket that really shouldn't have ever been written?

So what were Nomie's suggestions for fixing the problem? When I asked him, he responded, "Go back to the meters." 

All of the business owners and managers that I have spoken with have agreed, that meters of some sort are probably necessary, to keep the lots from staying full of commuters all day. They allow for turnover in the lots, and probably prevent students from simply parking their cars there all day, and then walking to campus. But they similarly agree that the new parking system is confusing, and they feel like they are losing business because of it.

If you are a business owner that has also been affected by the new parking system, please contact me or post your comments.