A parking apocalypse is about to descend on Kingston. As certain development projects in Kingston move forward, parking in our city is about to get much worse – especially in Uptown. As the Kingstonian project proceeds, there will be a temporary loss (1-2 years) of the Fair Street Extension municipal parking lot. While eventually it will be replaced with a parking garage, it will only increase available spaces fractionally for the public. Then there is the loss of the North Front Street municipal lot (beside Kingston Nord restaurant) to a new housing development, as the city announced not long ago. And don’t forget the proposed housing on Frog Alley.

It’s not just that we are losing parking spaces, we are significantly adding more parking demand. Midtown and the waterfront are also experiencing parking scarcity. With this growing urban crises, too often we locally hear of ideologically driven solutions rather than practical ones.

From local pols and community leaders, we are presented with visions of biking to work, a walkable city, and free public transit. We now even have human-powered “rickshaw taxis,” a.k.a. pedicabs – a cute novelty. But we apparently drew a line at horse-drawn carriages. This aversion to cars in planning for parking has resulted in situations like the too-small parking accommodations at Sojourner Truth Lake’s new Sophia Pool, resulting in visitor chaos. Alternatives to cars are useful, but duck a harder challenge. Between tourists, shoppers, and being the Ulster County seat, pulling in people with a car from all over the area will remain a huge part of Kingston, like it or not. Pretending or wishing it away will not change this fact. Unless we do something soon, we may suffocate on our own success if we don’t address the clear and oncoming parking apocalypse.

Kingston isn’t a single destination for tourists. We’re part of a larger ecosystem of touristy-type villages – Woodstock, New Paltz, Saugerties, Rosendale, Rhinebeck, etc. – that people travel to visit and explore. And that simply means more cars on our roads, with all due respect to UCAT's Nature Bus. And increasingly, our transportation infrastructure is beginning to show signs of strain, especially in areas like parking in Uptown Kingston. Make no mistake – this will kneecap the town’s economic potential. If there is limited or very expensive parking, visitors will increasingly pass, stunting our business district’s potential.

Let me let you in on a little secret – Kingston and our area is on the cusp of becoming a major, beyond regional tourist destination, with double-digit growth just last year, on top of year upon year of major growth rates. Ulster is blowing away its peers in tourism growth, with Kingston at its natural center. If you complain about traffic, prices, and out-of-town ways now, buckle up. Don’t blame me – I’ve been calling for diversification of our local economy for some time. But local government economic development strategy largely remains focused on small businesses (retailers) and tourism. It’s a simple and mostly uncontroversial approach, but it does add more cars to our roads – and increasingly buses too. We have to get out in front of this growing problem of traffic, road infrastructure and parking, lest it really get out of control.

Of course, the inevitable NIMBY voices say “we have enough tourism” and “no” to more development. That’s a workable argument if you already have yours - your pension, your remote job, your established way of life perfectly balanced the way you like it. But other generations are trying to make a go of it. Most local jobs and careers are in hospitality and tourism, like it or not. Our sidewalks will seriously be teeming with more people in business districts, our parks even more visited, our markets packed, and our festivals growing in size. Even a fairly moderate-sized event like the soapbox derby experiences real parking shortages. Many of the events I visited this summer at Kingston Point Beach had parking challenges. In effect, Kingston and Ulster is inviting the world to come and visit, but we’re running out of room to comfortably host them.

Thankfully, the mayor appears to be aware of the issue. This past June, Mayor Steve Noble announced a new citywide parking study, engaging a private consulting firm Stantec. Stantec’s website describes themselves as "a global leader in sustainable engineering, architecture, and environmental consulting. Our professionals deliver the expertise, technology, and innovation communities need to manage aging infrastructure, demographic and population changes, the energy transition, and more.” Sounds like a good resource for an older small city experiencing growing pains. Their study includes conducting an inventory and assessment of publicly available parking. It will also identify needs and opportunities in relation to recognized standards of similar communities.

The firm will also develop recommended strategies and programs to address parking needs, including but not limited to: parking management; connectivity; physical parking changes; regulatory and zoning changes; signage, education, and marketing materials; and public-private partnerships. The first public meetings on parking by Stantec and city government are expected to take place this October.

Although I am heartened to learn of this study, I also know that our local leadership tends to be more progressive about transitioning away from cars than the general public, or what is happening in our streets. Local government urban planning sophisticates often project a vaguely hostile attitude towards cars. Ivory-tower scholars and urban planning experts are more likely to view individual car use as something to discourage, and may even believe car ownership is rooted in oppression and neocolonialism. But for the average person, having a car is simply essential to get around, not an act of social injustice. As for taking the bus, even though ridership jumped when made free, it seems to have leveled out, suggesting there’s a limit in interest.

For Kingston’s small business community – the primary economic engine in our community – parking is non-negotiable. They are dependent upon out-of-town visitors (including those from surrounding villages like Rosendale, Rhinebeck or Hurley) to stay afloat. For many of these businesses, foot traffic is essential - like those in Uptown, Downtown and increasingly Midtown. Foot traffic is often the primary engine for sales and customer acquisition. And foot traffic is tied intrinsically with parking availability in a town like Kingston.

Studies show that a majority of consumers factor parking into their shopping decisions. Difficult or scarce parking acts as a direct deterrent to visiting a retail site. The more challenging, the more expensive, the less business you will get. While placing parking far outside in satellite lots sounds like a good idea, customer satisfaction deteriorates if a walk from a car is over 400 feet to an entrance. It’s important to note that customer satisfaction equals longer stays and increased sales. That equals more tax revenue for the city. As a solution to this, perhaps a cute trolley like bus could be run between satellite lots and retail sectors during the “high season.”

Another important consideration for retailers is rapid turnover rates in parking spaces, and a steady flow of open spots for incoming shoppers. I have always felt Kingston’s use of parking meters (and ‘riding the meter’ all day by some) to be counter-productive, and somewhat counter to its social justice ideals (using money as a gateway to access). Instead, free two-hour parking (monitored regularly by a visible, friendly parking and traffic steward) makes better sense for commercial districts. I have seen this done to great success in other tourism-heavy towns and villages.

For Kingston, the question will inevitably be where do we get the money to pay for building parking lots and improving traffic infrastructure? I’ll tell you – those new auto-ticketing cameras Kingston installed near three schools that’s bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars in just months. I’ve gotten a ticket, and paid, and likely many of you have as well. Changing habits takes time. But the city is getting a huge windfall of money, and the mayor says it isn’t about the money. As such, I’d propose that funds brought in from those cameras goes towards paying for improved traffic flow in the city and building out parking availability in strategically well-sited locations. Drivers pay these tickets, so it makes sense that that money would return to that “community” of car drivers in the form of improved transit-related infrastructure. Also, the city currently does precious little to help its business community now (and even introducing new taxes on businesses, and receiving nothing in return). By improving parking, Kingston can have a win-win scenario – more retail business means more city tax revenues (and jobs, and economic opportunity, etc). I do not see the city footing the bill for parking garages anytime soon, but I could see the city buying and building smaller parking lots around town in all of the business districts (where most of the demand tends to be).

I realize that the subject of parking may not be top of mind in our bike-friendly, rail trail-happy environmentally conscious community. But ignoring the subject, or engaging in wishful thinking will only result in a great deal more pain and frustration down the road. The city’s proactive parking study is an excellent first step, but the proof will be in the recommendations. If solutions lean heavily on technology solutions and car dissuasion methods, then we’ll know that we’re engaging in more dreaming rather than practical solution-finding.