Las Vegas seeks to improve downtown parking

By Conor Shine

Monday, Sept. 12, 2011 | 3:22 p.m.

Parking in downtown Las Vegas can often be a confusing and challenging experience, whether it’s finding change for the meter, figuring out where to get a ticket validated or even just finding a spot.

A new manager hired by the city has been tasked with sorting through these problems to make parking easier and more convenient for visitors, residents and workers.

The city held a news conference this morning to lay out its road map for improving the parking experience. It recently completed an inventory of available spaces in a 150-square-block area and is working on a plan due by December to identify solutions.

“Many people don’t know where to park, or how much to pay, or even how to pay, and that made coming downtown a negative experience. We want to change that,” Mayor Carolyn Goodman said. “(We want to) ensure we have convenient, consistently available parking for everyone.”

Leading the effort will be Brandy Stanley, the city’s parking services manager, who was hired in June. The position, which will pay about $108,000 annually, was created specifically for Stanley to improve communication within city government. Previously, five departments handled different aspects of parking downtown.

The city’s overall parking plan will consider several options to improve the experience, Stanley said. Parking spaces are plentiful, but most are owned by private businesses, and the city is working to foster partnerships to use those spaces more efficiently, especially during special events, she said.

“Opening up that inventory for people who need it is one of the things we need to do,” she said.

The city will also explore upgrading its technology, Stanley said, especially at on-street parking meters, and look at creating flexible rates and hours of enforcement to shape parking habits.

“In a lot of ways, parking downtown is very difficult. There are a lot of parking meters that don’t take credit cards. A lot of the technology we use right now creates the opportunity to have parking tickets because maybe you don’t have enough quarters,” she said. “There are a lot of places in downtown where parking spaces sit empty most of the time; we need to look at those places and see if it makes sense to charge for parking.”

Goodman emphasized that communicating with the public will be another aspect of the initiative.

The city has downtown parking information on its website, but Goodman said she’d like to see the information made available on mobile devices. The city is also exploring a system that would provide real-time updates on parking availability and might even allow for parking spaces to be reserved in advance.

“We have a perception that we are doing a very bad job on parking,” Goodman said. “We want everybody … to at least understand what we’re doing about parking and that we are aware there are problems.”