The Covington Motor Vehicle Parking Authority is in the midst of a massive parking study for its service area.
The study will focus largely on the city north of 12th Street and will include Mainstrasse. It is the largest of its kind since 2009. Desman Design Management, the same national firm that administered the 2009 study, will carry out the study. Although the authority and the city have carried out smaller studies for specific areas since 2009, this will be the first one of this scale in more than a decade.
“The thing about parking is you’ve got to stay on top of it,” said Gregory Shumate, a senior associate with Desman. “Just because you make a plan today, it’s changing all the time.”
Parking in Covington is governed largely by the Covington Motor Vehicle Parking Authority, a citizen-governed board that manages meter zones and other parking mechanics north of 12th Street, including public parking garages. Regulating parking in other parts of the city instead falls to the police and public works departments.
A five-person mayor-appointed board governs the authority, which operates independently of the city. The board sets policy, and a professional Executive Director, Jack Monts de Oca, manages its operations from a high level. The authority contracts out to ABM to perform collections, monitor meters and perform general day-to-day work. ABM also performs some limited duties south of 12th Street.
Shumate spoke at a public meeting Thursday night, where Desman representatives, a police officer and authority personnel informed attendees about the study. Residents from around the community also attended to share their concerns about parking and ask questions.
“Other than what we siphon from ABM systems, we haven’t really had a professional firm come look at the system and gather and publish data,” Monts de Oca said. “Desman will also be reviewing all aspects of the current operation as it pertains to what I do (and) what ABM does, and measure it and make recommendations on best practices.”
Desman teams have already begun conducting surveys and gathering data. Naashom Marx, the authority’s board chair, said the study would be completed in about two to three months. The timeline for implementing any strategies or changes recommended by the study hasn’t been hammered out yet.
Residents at the meeting had a variety of concerns and suggestions. Some pointed out that parking volume changes throughout the year, which may pose a problem for any conclusions drawn from data that was only collected in winter. Others had concerns about ride-share programs or pitched ideas about changes that could be made to permitting or metering policies. Some also felt that parking prohibitions in residential areas hadn’t been enforced.
Covington PD Senior Traffic Specialist Eric Ruete said that parking enforcement was the department’s “biggest complaint.”
“I’m versed on the parking passes and permits that we have in certain parts of the city, but not every officer is,” Ruete said. “So, all I ask is if there’s going to be some kind of parking enforcement, especially down in Mainstrasse, we need to be educated at the police department and be able to enforce it properly.”
“We have to be able to look at what works for businesses, what works for residents, what works for property owners,” Marx said.
Shumate said that there would be a public presentation to go over the results of the study once it’s completed.
