The City of Colorado Springs’ Parking Enterprise released its final draft of its Parking and Curb Management study and asks residents to provide feedback through the month of April before the plan becomes finalized.
The plan is available at ColoradoSprings.gov/2024ParkingPlan.
The plan provides a comprehensive framework for understanding the City’s parking system in both the downtown area and Old Colorado City that is managed by the Parking Enterprise. These two areas serve as the region’s primary mixed-use centers.
The 10-month process started in summer 2024 by analyzing the current parking plans and policies. That was followed by two rounds of soliciting community feedback in the summer and fall of 2024. The first phase of community engagement asked for help identifying issues and opportunities related to parking and curbside management in Downtown and Old Colorado City. The second round presented draft strategy recommendations and asked for public feedback.
“We are excited to begin this final phase of public feedback for the parking and curb management study,” said Richard Mulledy, the City’s Public Works Director. “We’ve completed two rounds of robust public engagement, and we feel this report reflects the public and stakeholder feedback we’ve received as we continue to improve our overall parking system in Downtown Colorado Springs and Old Colorado City.”
The plan sets four guiding principles: actively managing the curbside; increasing off-street parking productivity; embracing and leveraging technology; and creating a comprehensive customer experience. It also leverages previous plans and policies like the 2016 Experience Downtown Master Plan, the 2018 Old Colorado City Corridor Assessment, PlanCOS (2019), the Midland Corridor Transportation Study (2022), the ConnectCOS Transportation Plan (2023), and the 2024 State of Downtown Colorado Springs report. It considers current City zoning and municipal codes, while sometimes suggesting possible changes.
A set of four recommended strategies in the final draft plan set forth between 3-5 tactics for each strategy. The proposed implementation of the tactics ranges from immediate to longer term (four-plus years) and include various levels of effort and cost. They encompass such things as expanding the types of mobile payments the City offers, to longer-term possibilities such as deploying a unified off-street parking reservation system.
The appendixes of the report detail the vast public engagement data gathered during the last 10 months, showcase parking industry best practices the City might consider when implementing the plan, project possible future parking needs as both areas continue to grow, and compare Colorado Springs’ parking costs and fee structure with similar-sized cities like Boulder, Raleigh, N.C., Minneapolis and Columbus, Ohio.