Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, August 3, 2010,
Item 14
Item 14 is to discuss and take appropriate action related to planning assumptions to be used by broaddus and associates for the development of the travis county central campus master plan, including, a, a pilot initiative regarding parking permits and zoned parking to be used to maximize county assets in the future; b, a target of five percent reduction and demand for parking through the use of alternative modes of transportation; and c, a recommendation to use existing resources throughout the area to offset the need to build additional parking structures for visitor and juror parking.
>> good morning. I'm beth howl from the planning and budget office and with me today are leslie strickland from facilities management who is my co-project manager, and steven colston from broaddus and curt taylor or parking expert from dat item engineers. We were in front of the commissioners court on july 13th to try to talk about the beginning of our parking needs assessment for our travis county central campus master plan. One of the things that became very apparent as we were going through the dialogue that day is that in order to progress much further in the analysis of how parking can be supported by each of the various master planning scenarios we're developing and the planning horizons, 2015, 2025 and 2035, we needed to come before the commissioners court and ask for some very specific assumptions to use in completing our planning process to be able to assess impact of development scenarios. So we are here today to ask about some planning assumptions related to zoned permitting for county structures and maximizing those assets by a 15 to 20% or -- curt is nodding his head. 20% maximization of those assets for a planning assumption for various planning horizons. That we also look at adopting an assumption that you will see a five percent reduction, further reduction in demand because of alternative modes of transportation and programs that you initiate, and in supporting mass transit ridership or biking or walking to work. And finally, when we are looking at juror and visitor parking that we try to minimize the amount of construction that we would need to do for that. There was some steps, questions raised by judge dietz, who is also here today, and some information provided about pay for visitor parking. And we wanted to make clear that in the event that you needed to construct for jurors and visitors that we would encourage partnership arrangements that you try to develop a partnership that serves the community for construction of a garage assets of this size be given that today's demand would be for about a 500 car garage that. You look for joint ventures to do that and that you consider a pay for parking policy for that type of structure so that it can help offset the cost. But i know judge dietz is here if you have any other questions related to any of these parking assumptions or specifically to the pay for parking issue and how it might affect some of the scenarios that are currently under development, we'd be happy to discuss them.
>> for if we were to approve implementation of a, how would we do that?
>> the implementation of a zoned parking policy would have to be through a managed parking process. Sydney cross by is here representing the parking committee which suggested a pilot on several occasions if you want to address that and curt has some specific experience in that area.
>> good morning. Sydney crossby, chair of the parking committee. The parking committee recommended the 700 lavaca garage for a pilot. We had come to the court before and talked about doing a pilot of zoned parking, and we were fortunate that we bought that building, which has a garage that has not been in the county's inventory and already has a management company managing the spaces within that garage. So it makes it a prime place for us to do a pilot. Basically as we issue parking spaces in that garage, we would not change how it's operating. We would not designate spaces. The suggestion is that we would not designate spaces, that we would allow the management company to monitor the implementation of the pilot such that the parking spaces would be added incrementally and at a slow pace to make sure that there is that five percent buffer that is constantly referred to by the consultants in their backup.
>> ms. Eckhardt?
>> i do recall i believe it was more than a year ago the parking committee actually had made an initial recommendation to attempt the pilot at granger, but that met with several roadblocks. One, that we didn't have a parking arm, which would be necessary for such a pilot. Two, that we didn't have a parking contract with a management company and didn't have the in-house capacity to do it. And three, and probably most importantly with regard to the stumbling block, was the sense of entitlement in specific parking spaces that would make instituting a pilot in a garage for which we already had entitled spaces, difficult. Is that a fair statement?
>> yes. We investigated different resources for the management of such a pilot, and it was determined that arms would be helpful, although in doing some further research with our current consultants, arms are not usually preferred. There are other ways that we could go. But yes, we would need some kind of mechanism to monitoring who was entering and exiting the garage. Yes, we needed a dedicated resource, whether that was a management company or a dedicated resource internally that had to be decided. Had talked about some costs ranges for that. But also there is a culture shift that would need to occur in order to have the pilot be successful and for people to go through the experience before making judgment as to whether zoned parking would be appropriate for travis county.
>> so is it fair to say that with regard to this pilot, because 700 lavaca, we were fortunate in having 700 lavaca arrive on our doorstep, it's not so much that we are crafting a pilot, it's that the industry standard is already operating at 700 lavaca. So we will just insert ourselves into the industry standard and compare it against what our current policies are with regard to our other parking facilities.
>> correct. We could use that garage to then do utilization studies again to show that that process could be effective and is effective at many other places.
>> thank you.
>> any additional comments from drawd dus and associates?
>> yes, judge.
>> any additional comments from broaddus and associates? Then i'll recognize commissioner davis.
>> i was going to say additional information that's included in your backup has the counter to the approach. It sort of breaks down the counter to -- the not doing anything versus adopting a planning assumption for the purposes of planning that looks at a straight line production of projection of spaces, requirements based on current policy out to the 2035 window that has us at a parking deficit of nearly 16,000 spaces. Excuse me, 1600 spaces. 1600 spaces. Whereas integrating the assumptions for ab and c as described here would anticipate a deficit of around 740, which we could more reasonably plan for within our 2015, 2025, 2035 horizons as we look at the different planning scenarios.
>> that's for staff only parking. Those figures you quoted were for staff only parking.
>> commissioner davis?
>> let me ask this question: what level of involvement have you allowed for the employees of travis county who will also be impacted by this parking crisis that we appear to have? And especially if there may be possibility of financial contribution from employees of travis county? Have there been any type of survey rendered with the employees of travis county looking at some of these different recommendations, scenarios and things like that? I know the parking committee worked on a bunch of stuff, however i'm beginning to question the level of true involvement by the employees of travis county who come downtown, and they're all over the place, but they also come down here. What have we done in that regard as far as surveywise in that regard? Have you done anything in that vein or are you intending to do something in that vein? I may be behind -- you may have already done some stuff. I really don't know. But if not, then what's the strategy or what is the -- what's within the process that you may be looking at employee involvement, if it has not been done?
>> well, commissioner davis, as you mentioned, the parking committee did do a survey and used those comment to produce the report that we presented to the court last year. And as part of that discussion, within the committee as well we understood that there were some difficulties in understanding zoned parking and how it would work for each employee and how it would impact the employees, which is why we recommended the pilot.
>> but the money aspect of it. It's the money that may have been -- was that also part?
>> when you say money, do you want to clarify? Do you mean paying for parking?
>> yeah, paid parking.
>> from an employee standpoint, the committee did not recommend employees pay for parking.
>> but if you ask about juror or visitor parking, we did not ask that question.
>> no. I was talking about employees of travis county.
>> no. The committee recommended that we do not charge employees. And i would assume that belinda is the same place.
>> our assumptions right now don't recommend picking up an incremental whatever minor increment that paid for parking would assume at this point. That is something that you can consider in the out years as you're looking at when you're actually building garages to meet the deficit as it comes forward, but that's not something as a general planning assumption that we're recommending at this time is that the employees pay for parking.
>> i think they need to probably come across because i think there are some employees who feel that they may be under the gun or under the radar as far as futuristic charges to park. And of course we've wrestled with that issue a few times from this dais.
>> i think that the biggest cultural shift that we're actually recommending as a planning assumption in this is the zoned, permitted parking with a maximization or an overissuance of 20%. And that is a big shift philosophically, so we haven't gone further than that in these recommendations than are before you today in looking at how we analyze demand for the master plan. We haven't incorporate add pay for park option for employees.
>> okey-doke. Thank you.
>> mr. Reeferseed, anything related to county parking for employees, jurors or the public?
>> yes. I resent your kind of big bigoted --
>> and all of the comments that you make are off target and simply waste our time.
>> i'm sorry you look at it that way. I'm a citizen. Mine is about part b, targeted, meaning hoped for demand reduction of five percent. Again, i'm a citizen, you ought to get used to that. The support of the mass transit, two things you mentioned is the reason for that or the source of that will be the support of mass transit, which is good. And bicycle paths, etcetera, which there's nothing mentioned in this document. So my key suggestion here is to rescind the recent fee increase -- reduce the fees for bus riders if you want to increase the use of the mass transit because obviously the riders' fees, already they don't cover the cost, so why not give us poor folk a break. There's a secret ongoing depression going on and this is an undeclared war on the struggling, suffocating middle class. Pay attention to your voters out there. And we need this. If you think it doesn't matter, it's a little few pennies here this way or that way, it makes a difference where a whole lot of us can get to where we have to go. Please rescind these -- even though other places have a better deal or they put up more or not as good a deal or whatever, we have to pay attention to our citizens and reduce the fees for bus riders.
>> you believe the county has that authority? You social securitily believe the county has the authority to reduce bus fares?
>> i'm sorry. I assumed that you're all powerful.
>> no. I'm just asking if you believe that.
>> no. Well, it's an issue that i thought i would bring up here since we're discussing these --
>> thank you very much. Judge dietz?
>> i wanted to emphasize that i believe that this planning assumption contemplates that the civil courthouse will be off the central campus because every survey that the consultant group has done has pinpointed parking at the courthouse as the number one issue. And we believe that good planning, its kind of hard these days to speak in favor of parking, but good planning would contemplate that we would have parking associated with the construction of a new courthouse. And what we've tried is we've provided the consultants, and then i asked that it be provided to you, is the parking arrangements for harris county, dallas, bexar county and tarrant county, which all indicate at least for harris county and bexar county, that they provide parking that the juror or the visitor to the courthouse has to pay for. We've also asked that y'all be provided -- we dug out what the revenue streams, which show that there's a positive revenue stream from those paid courthouses over and above cost. Tarrant county has off site parking, but they run a shuttle system from seven in the morning until seven at night with buses every 30 minutes. So we believe that it's necessary that we not have no parking or possibly even less parking than what we've got now, and what i'm assured by the consultants is that these planning assumptions are not necessarily determinetive for the civil courthouse. I have a bunch of quizzical faces here.
>> that's my understanding as well. They do to our internal parking needs, not to juror or visitor parking at this time. Is that correct?
>> except for ic, which is what judge dietz is discussing.
>> except for what?
>> item c.
>> but that does establish a standard for us with regard to increased collaboration with the city of austin, any kind of future parking in order for us to not build a garage specifically for jurors and visitors when the peak time for jurors and visitors as i understand it is monday and friday. So it would be -- it would probably not be good planning for us to build a structure specifically for monday and friday visitors only to have it underutilized tuesday, wednesday, thursday.
>> and judge dietz's assessment of the fact that many of the other counties that we looked at in texas offer multiple options, but they also offer a pay for park option. It helps subsidize that structure. It might in some cases allow you to subsidize your juror parking fee so they can park at a reduced rate, which is something curt talked about in benchmarking as we've been through this analysis. But he is correct in we are trying to make sure that item c responds to various options for the master planning scenarios. Some of which do pull the civil courthouse out of the central area. We need to do that in our analysis to make sure that we can meet the demands for both the criminal system and juror demand and the civil system and juror demand and make sure that they're integrated approaches, and if an option comes up that it's a single structure and you're shuttling whatever that is through an ultimate partnerships, but we do need to know that you're affirming that we're going to pursue meeting that parking demand in some fashion. I think that's judge dietz's concern.
>> sort of the secondary concern, and it was just to have this kind of discussion to make sure that we're all on the same page. Many of the planning scenarios that are being looked at under ab and c would require the use either of the parking garage just immediately north of here and/or the parking garage at 10th and san antonio, which would reduce the parking. So it's it's like if all of those are equal and we're still going to consider all of them as to what's the best use of the land for the long-term, it means we will probably have to replace some of the parking that would be appropriated for different use.
>> that is the nutshell of why we need planning assumptions first. If we're going to be trying to replace structured parking because we're repurposing something in scenarios, we need a set of parameters around where we site the garages that we're replacing and meeting current demand. But i do think that we have a unique consideration in play with one of the options that we'll be bringing forward to you and that is the separation of our system. And you might need to treat those two justice systems and their visitor parking slightly different. And hence the recrafting of the backup that we sent forward in the discussion for item c, so that in the event that you do have to pursue structured park fog those things that you do it in a fashion that meets multiple demands for a specific area, whether it's up here or someplace else because you may find partnerships in this area as well.
>> miss fatero.
>> i want to talk about the employee parking issues. I think that we want -- we're focusing on facilities now, but as a manager my focus is how do i get my people to get the work done in the most efficient manner. People have waited six to seven years for parking places that are assigned. It's a big deal. It's a huge deal. For us to think that the workforce will not be negatively impacted if we take that away, i think it's a false assumption. I think we need to give that some thought. There's a lot of talk about public transportation and wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone could take it, and i agree with that. We don't have that in austin, texas right now. We just plain do not have a commuter transportation that is an alternate, a viable alternate for our employees to take. The other thing about the garage at 700 is we will not have all of those parking places because we have leases over there and they have assigned parking, plus they have some extra parking for their clients. So it isn't as though we have that. I am very concerned about the lack of certainty when people come to work, and that impact on the workforce. As you well know, i think parking is an issue and i did my best to solve it in my own office. And at a time when any department could have chosen to do that, i was the only one that did. But the thing about certainty is if you know you don't have a place, then have you to arrange something. And that's different than everyone coming to work and not knowing whether they have a place or not. And no offense to consultants, but when they leave, i will still have my workforce to deal with. And when in fact they show up and do not have a parking place, before there was certainty, either get yourself outside parking or a reserved spot. Then there is a problem. What do you do when you come downtown and you thought you might have a parking place and you do not? I am not convinced of the validity of the surveys. One of the things i did was since we were here on the 13th is i took my own informal survey of commissioners court parking places, for instance. Different times of the day when a spot was vacant. And i know why they're vacant, you're working all the time t has nothing to do with that. You have activities outside and you are coming back and forth. Many of our employees are in the same situation. I looked four days a week most weeks, twice a day, in the average vacancy was 40%. That's the kind of survey, but mine was more in-depth, that the consultant did. If someone were saying to you, 40% of the time the parking spaces are vacant, you don't need -- you only need four. The five of you just need four or three. Then when you come to work on tuesday and you need five, there is no place for you to park. So that same thing applies to our employees. So i caution you, don't ignore the impact on this workforce. Since i spoke out on it last time employees have been acting like i'm their best friend throughout the county saying, yes, this is a problem. So i don't know what direction you want to give them, but i am very concerned about taking something away from our most experienced employees that they have had in the past. And there is a monetary impact on that. I just want you to be sure that you understand that. Once you give someone parking -- right now they either contract someplace else, they ride with others or they take the bus. Most people are not in the position where they can ride their bike to work. I mean, if they are, that's good. I think i have one employee that does, but most people are not in that position. So the reality is that if they give up their contract someplace else because they're one of the few that are now in the pool -- and this pool doesn't work out, then they've lost that place. And the uncertainty. I urge you to be very careful. I realize this is just a planning assumption and we don't know and five years from now there may be a wonderful public transportation system in austin, texas, and that takes care of this. And you can change your assumptions as we're going along, but i think from the employee viewpoint i think it's a terrible idea and i think it will be received very poorly from employees. For what that's worth.
>> may i point out that --
>> i think we should indicate our interest in pursuing a. And that we ask staff to come back with a specific implementation outline. And that wouldn't impact any current parking unless we sort of gave them another parking location. But that we delay consideration of b and c. Until an appropriate time in the future.
>> i am fine with that, but i would like to emphasize that the wording of a is a parking assumption that permits and zoned parking will be used to maximize county assets in the future. Because right now we do not maximize our county assets. Right now we use only 80% of our capacity. That means 20% of our capacity is not available to the employees who have been on that waiting list for eight years. I for one was one of the employees who sat on the waiting list for eight years and scrambled for parking. Our current policies prevent a large number of our employees from having a parking benefit.
>> but if we have a specific outline, we will see all the details.
>> yes.
>> we can address the issue that you just raised.
>> i just want to point out that the wording is maximize county assets in the future, because we don't right now. We don't.
>> i'm talking about the pilot initiative. That's really the specific recommendation. So the specific recommendation is more narrow than the wording of a.
>> yes, that's true.
>> what i have in mind is there are steps that you have to take in order to implement a zoned parking strategy in the lavaca garage. And so we ought to see that. And we ought to know how many vacant spaces exist, and if we apply the 110%, 115% rule, then how many employees we're able to give parking too.
>> and just as a point of illustration, my husband who offices in that building and has for a number of years and is assigned a zone, not a specific space, has never not had a space to park.
>> do not take mr. Eckhardt's parking.
>> [ laughter ] all right? Whatever vacant spaces exist, we ought to know and put together a strategy to use them and an outline of specifics will put us in a position to do that. Otherwise we will have niewm must general discussions like this. We will need additional general discussions of b and c. Right? Because those are really big issues. But the garage is there. We can determine the number of spaces that have not been signed to folk, and we can determine specifically how we will implement zone parking there. And that will put us in a position to decide whether we want to do it elsewhere after we see what impact it has. On paper this is an idea that makes all the sense in the world, but we have to deal with reality when it comes to county employees. So this gives us a look-see. Which i'm just suggesting in the form of a direction. And when it comes back we'll have a specific motion on the details, which if y'all would outline for us, i'm thinking it would be fairly simple, something we can do in two weeks. Or did you have a week in mind?
>> in order to close out scenarios and get them back to you and get them in front of the public in a timely fashion, it probably needs to be a week.
>> we're talking about a.
>> i understand.
>> i don't know a that the court would be in a position to decide on b and c in a week.
>> so what we would then be doing in our master plan is carrying forward an assumption that you would not have a five percent reduction for mass transit, we would carry the current analysis that shows two percent.
>> we're just asking you to put together specific details of implementation of the pilot initiative that is recommended.
>> right.
>> which is part of a. The rest of that i'm not suggesting that we land on it one way or the other. Frankly i need more time. But i don't need more time to know let's see the specifics on a, especially as to the recommendation, which is a pilot initiative of space that we have not used. So if there's anything that ought to be simple, it ought to be implementing the pilot there.
>> right. And we have the count whof is contracted for spaces and i can get that with sydney and we can work on that.
>> i'm confused here. The purpose of these planning assumptions, a, b and c, are not to implement policy, they're just to create planning -- if this is -- if we are unified that this is our goal, how we get there is not what y'all need to know. What y'all need to know is that we're unified that this is our goals for our planning horizons, for our planning requirements.
>> for 2015, 2025 and 2035.
>> a says a pilot initiative. I'm suggesting that we see the details. As to policy considerations, i'm not suggesting that we land wifort one way or the other on those, but that we take more time to mull over them and bring them back for action at the appropriate time. The rest of a, b and c. Yes, sir.
>> judge and commissioners, i think one thing that might be a point of clarification is the information that is listed on the agenda is a little bit different from the information that was listed in the backup, which was what we were really anticipating an action on today, which was explicitly the planning assumptions for the master plan. Not policy actions and not necessarily even near term implement indication pilot projects related to those, but very explicitly so we can move forward on the planning assumptions, the backup associated with -- as it reads on a is assumed parking permits and zoned parking will be used to maximize county assets in the future. That's the assumption that we were anticipating an action on today.
>> the assumption is we will maximize county assets in the future. Whether or not it's zoned parking or assigning specific spaces is not the issue for you, it's whether or not we are going to maximize county assets in the future. Am i correct about that?
>> but that is so general that we could unanimously vote for that. Who wouldn't? What i'm suggesting is that i'm not ready on the assumptions. I am ready to take a good look at that pilot initiative that i've heard so much about, and that makes sense. So i'm not rejecting or approving all the assumptions that are asked for, i'm suggesting that we bring them back at the appropriate time. If it's next week, i can be ready to act next week.
>> all right. I'll work with cindy in the interim on the pilot.
>> as to -- i join commissioner eckhardt. I'm in favor of maximizing county assets in the future. So what? I should have been doing that historically.
>> but we weren't.
>> [ laughter ]
>> well, we were to the extent that we could. We were to the extent that we could, but there are some -- there are some strategies we have in place that could be improved regarding parking. And the recommendations basically deal with how we can improve them. I'm saying, hey, i'm not ready on those today, but if the court wants to decide next week, i'll be ready by them. By then.
>> we'll work and repost a more specific assessment language.
>> fascinating discussion, y'all. We'll have it back on next week.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, August 3, 2010, 2010 12:30 PM
