SPOKANE, Wash. — The results are in on the City of Spokane's recent parking study about 1,900 residents participated in it last spring.
A private consulting firm counted nearly 37,000 downtown Spokane parking spaces. They found that during peak hours, about 40 percent of the city's overall parking spaces are not being used. The study also found that most people go downtown for work or to go shopping.
The top three issues people had with parking were off-street parking being too expensive, not enough available parking at all times and locations and that on street parking time limits are too short.
The study found about 40 percent of all the city's parking spots are not being used.
The private consultant who conducted the survey observed parking demands varied throughout the day and demand is higher in specific areas of downtown.
The areas in high demand include the downtown core, the hospital district, Kendall Yards, the courthouse and freeway viaduct.
These areas are outlined or filled in with red on this map of downtown Spokane. The map shows peak parking usage on weekdays. The areas in blue are the least used parking spaces most of which appear to be on the north side of the river.
This map shows peak parking usage during the weekend. In both maps, you can see the same areas are in high demand any day of the week.
Areas where parking is underutilized on the weekend spread out on both sides of the river, but away from the downtown core.
While there are spots available, they are not necessarily the ones convenient for people visiting Spokane's most popular stops. The study notes on-street and off-street parking within a few block walk is often underutilized.
The study is in its second phase and the consulting firm will look for areas of improvement and give their recommendation to the city.
Over the next three months, they will focus on a few strategies to create their recommendations including maximizing the use of parking supply, making parking simple to find and use and reducing parking demand.
According to the parking study project schedule, a final plan for downtown parking improvements is expected to be completed in early 2019.