Transportation commission supports East Austin parking program
By Kris Seavers
AUSTIN, Texas – Driving and parking in many Austin communities is a challenge, but the Urban Transportation Commission’s plan for a pilot program in Mueller could change how the people who live and work in East Austin get around.
At its meeting on Thursday, Nov. 13 the Urban Transportation Commission unanimously approved a proposal to create a parking and transportation management district in the Mueller community. The program, the first of its kind in Austin, will create unique infrastructure for areas where commercial businesses, educational facilities, medical buildings and residential properties coexist.
Steve Grassfield, the city’s parking enterprise manager, briefed the transportation commission on the Austin Transportation Department’s future plans for parking meters, signs to help drivers find parking spots and other improvements in the Mueller area. Grassfield said the majority of the people who live and work in Mueller support a residential parking permit and parking fees as strategies to eliminate congestion, the lack of signs and other related issues in the area.
The new program, which will add residential parking permits and street parking meters, is similar to the parking benefit program that the city council installed in West Campus in 2006. In West Campus, revenue raised from the parking meters and permits is used for improvements related to biking, walking and public transit.
But Grassfield said there is a need for a more “comprehensive tool” in areas where residents and commercial entities are in close quarters. The management district will use funds from on-street parking or paid off-street public parking for an expanded list of improvement projects, making it possible for the area to install signs, landscaping, street furniture and public art with the city funds.
“Where the parking benefit district allowed us to be reactive, this will allow us to be proactive,” Grassfield said.
Urban Transportation Commission Chair Rich MacKinnon emphasized that business customers and residents alike will benefit from the management district in Mueller.
“It is important to manage parking so that people are able to find spaces in a reasonable amount of time,” MacKinnon said. “The purpose of the district is to directly benefit the residents of Mueller.”
Grassfield said the parking system used in West Campus has generated $250,000 each year since its installment, and the new program in Mueller is projected to raise even more money.
Based on its designation as a model for responsible urban development, Grassfield said that Mueller, which was formerly the site of the Robert Mueller Municipal Airport, is an ideal community to host a pilot program like the management district. But MacKinnon emphasized that any of Austin’s communities could have piloted the program. Mueller residents just applied first.
“Mueller, as any district can, applied so they can get the benefits [of the program],” MacKinnon said. “It applied first, and it met all of the requirements.”
At Thursday’s meeting, some residents raised concerns about metered parking. Joseph Iley, a pedicab driver, is particularly worried that his fellow drivers will be forced to pay to park their cars when they are on pedicab duty.
“On Fourth Street, there are only two businesses that attract parking in that area, and one is the pedicab shop that I work for,” Isley said. “The only ones that park there are pedicab drivers…What are we changing [the parking system] for?”
Grassfield and the Austin Transportation Department will go before the city council on Dec. 11 to request approval for the management district ordinance and an application for Mueller to create the district.
Click here for a Storify recap of the commission meeting. Story produced for J310F Reporting Words.