“Dynamic Parking” Dawns

Corelle Kierse will no longer have to rush back from shopping at downtown stores to feed the meter every two hours on York Square Place behind the Broadway shopping district — now that the city has approved a new ​“no time limit” plan for meters throughout town.

The meters by Yale’s Payne-Whitney gymnasium between Ashmun and and Tower Parkway are one of nearly three dozen blocks and groups of blocks that are about to have their time limits increased.

The time-limit changes are the first phase of a broader plan for citywide ​“dynamic parking” plan unanimously approved Thursday night by the city Traffic Commission (which doubles as the city Police Commission) at a meeting at 1 Union Ave. Other phases will include altering amounts of money charged per hour in different spots.

City traffic tsar Jim Travers (pictured) presented the plan to the traffic commissioners Thursday night. Travers and Yale Presidential Fellow Ben Green, who assisted mightily in the project, unfurled maps of the old and proposed meter times to show to the commissioners. ​“We’re pretty excited,” Travers said of the dynamic parking plan. ​“It’s looking at parking times in relation to demand and areas of business.”

Click here for a color-coded map of the new meter time limits.

The time limits apply between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Between 5 and 9 p.m., you can feed the meter for up to four hours.

In Travers transmission to the commissioners he wrote: ​“In no cases will rates increase or time limits decrease. Although demand for parking is quite high in some City areas, there are many streets that see little or no regular use. By making these blocks more attractive for parking, the new regulations will draw some visitors away from the busiest streets and onto less heavily-trafficked blocks.

“This will allow more individuals to find curbside parking near their destination and make it easier for others to find cheap and long-term parking, thus promoting economic development. These more customer-friendly parking policies will help motivate visitors to come into the city and encourage more positive feelings about parking in New Haven.”

People should see signs being changed within a couple of weeks. The first will be installed in areas they think will reap the greatest benefit, and then areas that have the least amount of visitors today. In those areas will be first the reductions in hourly rates to draw more cost conscious customers at these locations, he reported.

To draw up the plan, Travers’ crew crunched data on meter utilization and meter revenue. Then Green went out talking to the merchants and to the Town Green Special Services District for anecdotal evidence.

The Town Green District, the Chapel West Special Services District, and Yale-New Haven Hospital submitted letters approving the plan.

“I can’t find what I want in two hours, too many stores,” Kierse said Thursday afternoon as she angled into a metered spot and got ready for her shopping foray.

Eventually, the actual number of quarters Kierse will need to put in meters might also be reduced on York Square Place and in other selected areas to attract cost-conscious parkers. But that’s down the road in a second phase of dynamic parking.

In the next weeks new signs will go up with different hourly rules in various parts of downtown and adjacent districts. For example, the 15-minute meters on York between North and South Frontage roads will now last an hour.

In a second group of streets, such as Grove between Orange and Church, one hour will shortly become two hours.

Elizabeth Barrett, the manager of Ted’s Cleaners, applauded the plan. Her son Benjamin Ivory said that people who park on this stretch of Grove to use the bank or especially to go to court often need three hours.

“I’ll put more quarters in if there’s more time,” he said.

“I support it,” said Brendan Bloom, co-owner of nest-door La Cuisine. ​“I understand the city needs more revenue, but customers being afraid of getting a parking ticket is not good for business.”

Along a third group of streets on the outskirts of retail districts, such as behind the Yale gym, where Kierse parks to shop, the increase will be from two hours to five hours or to no limit at all.

Finally, in areas that are widely underutilized increased, Travers hopes to lure more parkers with unlimited times and perhaps in the future lower hourly rates.

“Some are areas near the hospital, and this may be a solution to ​‘per diem people” such hospital workers who don’t have parking privileges,Travers told the commissioners.

You Can’t Do Anything In 15 Minutes

In the department’s research, ​“we found that people see 15 minutes as our device to ​‘get you.’ You can’t do anything in 15 minutes,” Travers said.

Lindsey Alves (pictured above) certainly would agree with that. As she sat at the Subway on York Street by the hospital, she had to eat fast and keep an eye on her grey Saab parked outside at one of the 15-minute meters. She’d just spent every hour since 7:30 a.m. with her dad, who was about to undergo open heart surgery at Yale-New Haven Hospital. A little more time to eat and to gather herself would have been welcome, she said.

Near her a hospital employee in blue scrubs was hurrying down a steak-and-bacon sub before having to go out to move his car at the meter beside Alves. ​“That’s a real good idea,” he said of the increased time limits.

In Travers transmission to the commissioners he wrote: ​“In no cases will rates increase or time limits decrease. Although demand for parking is quite high in some City areas, there are many streets that see little or no regular use. By making these blocks more attractive for parking, the new regulations will draw some visitors away from the busiest streets and onto less heavily-trafficked blocks.