RFP2024-154 Parking Management Plan
When:A. OBJECTIVE:
The City of Long Beach seeks the professional services of a consultant to develop a parking management plan. The consultant will analyze previous studies, existing conditions, and best practices deployed in other cities and recommend on-street and off-street parking strategies that maximize utility, value, and safety. The consultant will facilitate meetings with stakeholders and members of the community and present the plan and recommendations to the Long Beach City Council.
B. BACKGROUND:
The City of Long Beach is a suburban community/visitor destination (especially in the summer) with 3.5 miles of pristine beaches, an iconic boardwalk, as well as high quality restaurants, shops, and a multi-modal transportation center with regional connections. However, being a regional destination located on a narrow barrier island with a higher population density (15,665 persons per square mile) than most of Long Island results in daily and seasonal parking challenges.
Long Beach’s success has created its own set of problems, in terms of parking supply not meeting the demands of the City. A common sentiment based upon community engagement surveys is that existing parking is insufficient to meet the demands for residents, businesses, and visitors. The lack of parking hinders access to local businesses, resulting in revenue losses for the City and business community. On-street and off-street parking makes up just 0.8 percent of the total land area and the demand for parking surges in the summer when the City’s year-round population of approximately 35,000 can balloon to over 60,000. This increase is primarily due to visitors that are attracted to the beach and other recreational resources, many of whom arrive by car. In addition, a significant proportion of high-rise buildings provide less on-site parking than would otherwise be required by the existing zoning requirements, resulting in increased competition for parking throughout the City. Additional congestion also comes from Park Avenue being used as the primary east-west thoroughfare between Lido Beach to the east and Atlantic Beach to the west. Park Avenue expands to a maximum width of approximately 155 feet (not including sidewalks) and consists of six travel lanes (three in each direction), two parking lanes, and an approximately 60-foot wide parking median. This has attracted drivers to Long Beach who use this corridor to pass through to other destinations, as demonstrated by high Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT) and Design Hour Volume (DHV) rates collected by New York State Department of Transportation. There is additional road pressure in the West End where the roadway system narrows to one lane in each direction on Beech Street.
These factors add to the complexity of parking in the City and the concern that future economic growth is stymied by parking infrastructure not meeting existing demand. Parking and curb usage play an important role in the overall transportation system. On-street parking is the primary form of parking supply in Long Beach. However, there is also a significant amount of off-street parking resources including municipal surface lots and a garage. An inadequate parking supply, combined with strong demand, leads to unnecessary circulation as motorists search for parking spaces and/or park illegally, thus reducing roadway capacity. The existing parking resources along, but not limited to, the major commercial corridors and beach-oriented destinations throughout the City are not sufficiently managed. The negative consequences that result from the misalignment between parking supply and demand affect the broader community and the economy.
Therefore, the City seeks the professional services of a consultant to develop a comprehensive parking management plan that analyzes parking solutions for the City in a cost-efficient and self-sustaining manner that reconciles the needs of residents, visitors, and local businesses. The assessment should pay particular focus on the three major downtown commercial corridors: the West End (Beech Street), Central Park Avenue, and the East End (East Park Avenue), but should also consider how parking in these corridors impacts the surrounding areas, and vice versa. See Attachment B for a map of the three downtown corridors.
A thorough parking analysis should address the City’s existing on- and off-street parking resources, where demand far exceeds supply, while balancing the needs of residents, businesses, and visitors. The primary objective of this study is to identify practical strategies that can be adopted to increase efficiency and utilization of exiting parking resources, particularly during peak summer months when demand significantly exceeds supply. The analysis should include a parking survey to document capacity, utilization (number of parked vehicles and type), parking regulations on each block frontage and off-street parking facilities for peak and off-peak periods. Observations of illegal parking should also be included. The need for short, medium, and long-term parking for all users should be addressed. The parking analysis should focus on the aforementioned three major downtowns areas during weekday and weekend peak periods. However, given the seasonal parking demands of the City and to most accurately ascertain parking needs, collection of existing conditions should occur during the early summer when parking demand is strongest and most competitive. Recommendations should consider the inclusion of metered parking, in a way that respects the parking needs of residents. As the City is on a barrier island that has flooding, resiliency measures that address parking issues are important as well.
The objective of this proposed parking management study is consistent with the City of Long Beach 2022-2032 Comprehensive Plan that was adopted on August 1, 2023. The Comprehensive Plan included several parking-related strategies in the Implementation Action Plan including the design and implementation of a parking management plan, the redesign of existing parking facilities, the development of more transit-oriented development, and the evaluation of transportation demand strategies. This document can be accessed at the following link: https://www.longbeachny.gov/index.asp?SEC=06493B81-8D5B-4508-8914-D58A1A3E81C2.