New Haven Independent

Will Downtown Handle Parking Crunch?

by Leonard J. Honeyman | December 11, 2007 1:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

Student parking for the new Gateway Community College should not add to the downtown parking crunch that now exists, a city official told the Development Commission. At least one commissioner wasn’t so sure.

Tony Bialecki, the city’s deputy director of economic development, updated the half-dozen members present at Tuesday’s monthly meeting on the land-transfer agreement that would turn the former Macy’s and Malley’s sites on Church Street over to the state for the college campus. Bialecki (pictured showing commission members the site map for the college campus as members Kevin Ewing, left, and Bruce H. Kalk looked on) said he expected the land will be transferred to the state two months after the land-transfer agreement was signed. That should take place early next year he said.

The campus would include a parking garage with about 650 spaces for the students and faculty, he said.

Because the number of students and faculty is expected to be at least triple that number, commission member Bruce H. Kalk expressed concern about the impact the college would have on the already crowded downtown parking picture.

Kalk said he was concerned that the 700 parking spaces that the city has earmarked for Gateway students at the Temple Street Garage would leave non-students circling the area looking for parking.

“It’s already hard to find parking” at Temple Street, he said. He predicted “an enormous crunch at the Temple Street Garage.

“I’m concerned about mass transit being held up as a panacea for parking problems,” Kalk told a reporter after the meeting. “I teach at Southern [Connecticut State University] and I’m skeptical that kids will use buses” based on his experience there, he said.

He said he fears that city plans, including a parking garage at State and Wall streets, won’t alleviate the parking snarl but just decentralize the availability of parking spaces. He said his experience at Southern leads him to believe that students will not walk any farther than they absolutely have to and that they would be reluctant to use parking lots farther from the campus.

Aldermanic representative Frances “Bitsie” Clark, D-7, said she had hoped the 650 spaces would be available to people coming downtown on weekends. But Bialecki told her the college plans to hold classes nights, Saturdays and perhaps on Sundays and Saturday nights.

After the meeting Bialecki said he thought the city’s parking plans would be up to the challenge presented by college students.

He called the student population diverse in age, saying that “the typical college student will be a 30-year-old mother.” He said he expects many of the students to use mass transit.

In addition, employees at the Temple Street Garage will be able to configure entrances, exits and traffic patterns to get people in and out of the garage as quickly as possible during peak parking hours.

Bialecki said some people “who don’t mind walking a couple of blocks” have already begun parking at the cleared Coliseum site. Some of those train commuters had been parking at the Temple Street Garage, he said. A second parking garage, planned near the train station on Union Avenue, should also relieve some pressure from the Temple Street Garage, he said.

Share this story

Share |

Comments

Posted by: charlie | December 11, 2007 1:32 PM

The solution is to significantly raise the price of parking. Then people will take mass transit. Having thousands of cars constantly circling about creates a large burden for the city's environmental well-being, which can be alleviated through increased parking fees, car pooling incentives, cheaper transit and other measures.

Posted by: Esbe | December 11, 2007 1:42 PM

The Long Wharf theater wants, what, 350 parking spots on George St. for its new theater. Those spots would be free in the daytime for workers and students. I wonder if there is some way to accelerate that parking even while the rest of the theater is under construction.

The new garage next to the train station is going to be completed in, oh, 2020 at the rate things are going there, so that's not much of a help. What was the recent progress there -- that the city and the state mutually agreed to really, truly think about doing something at some point?

Posted by: Bruce | December 11, 2007 3:13 PM

The number of students and faculty may be 3X the number of spaces, but this really sounds worse than it is. I doubt they will all be there at the same time -- some have night classes, some day classes, and some teachers are only there a few days a week. I absolutely agree with Charlie about raising the parking rates. The new campus is close enough to the downtown hub that it should be more convenient for more students to take the bus or even the train.

This will also be better for local business as more people would be walking by the nearby shops & restaurants.

Posted by: charlie | December 11, 2007 3:53 PM

Once the area between Union Station and the Coliseum Site is redesigned (the city already has plans for it, actually), it will be even easier to walk from Union Station to Gateway CC. It's practically on campus.

Posted by: pedro | December 11, 2007 4:55 PM

Can someone clarify if the campus is going to take BOTH Macy's and Malley's sites or just the Macy's site? I've heard both things.
It was my understanding that the school was going to be "wrapped" around the parking on the Macy's site, opening the Malley's site up for development. Has this changed?

Posted by: Our Town | December 12, 2007 11:52 AM

It's my understanding that parking for Gateway students will be FREE.

More of an issue is that many of the students will be coming and going at rush hour. Anybody been near North Frontage and Church at 8:30 AM? Also, this will be in addition to the new traffic from the Cancer Center.

Posted by: charlie | December 12, 2007 12:07 PM

Traffic is good. More traffic = higher land values. At a certain point, people will take mass transit. We should try to get to that point. Also, students should not get free parking. They should get free bus and train passes instead; if they do get free parking, it should be at a remote lot served by shuttle bus. "Park and Ride" lots around the area are all free and plentiful. If people can commute an hour to get to college in New York City, why can't they bother to do the same here?

Posted by: Esbe | December 12, 2007 6:17 PM

Pedro -- the project is taking up both the old Malley's and Macy's sites.

Posted by: Chris Gray | December 13, 2007 2:20 AM

I guess it is still the old chicken versus the egg problem.

Pushing folks to actually use mass transit will increase the pressure to actually provide good mass transit, rather than simply whining about how bad the service is while driving around in big squares trying to find a cheap, convenient place to park.

Don't tell the "retired" Mr. McGrath, though. His old department will have your car towed while you're at school.

Will Downtown Handle Parking Crunch?

Comments

Sorry, Comments are closed for this entry

Special Sections

Legal Notices

Some Favorite Sites

Government/ Community Links

Flyerboard

Sponsors

N.H.I. Site Design & Development

NHI Store

News Feed