News

Oct 14, 2024

Avon takes stock of parking management program 10 months after implementation | VailDaily.com

News News | Oct 10, 2024 [email protected] Ten months into Avon’s new parking management program, the town sees its system as generally favorable and plans to continue to build in productive

News News | Oct 10, 2024

[email protected]

Ten months into Avon’s new parking management program, the town sees its system as generally favorable and plans to continue to build in productive changes.

Implementing a parking management program in Avon “was a controversial topic from the get-go,” said Greg Daly, Avon chief of police, at the Tuesday, Oct. 8, Avon Town Council meeting. The program underwent “considerable” discussion from the council before it was implemented, he said.

“We were, as a town, trying to find a collectively fair approach to parking,” Daly said.

Avon first started discussing creating a parking management system in November 2021, but the decision was not encoded into law until October 2023.

“One of the biggest issues was, parking at the rec center (Avon Recreation Center) just became ridiculous,” Daly said. Patrons of the recreation center struggled to find parking, which was attributed to skiers parking in the recreation center lot to utilize Avon’s skier shuttle and other public transportation options to Beaver Creek and Vail.

From the start, the town’s goal was not to make money on the program, but rather to ensure those trying to use Avon’s amenities were able to access them, Daly said. Indeed, the town has spent upward of $90,000 on implementing the program, not including the salaries of two full-time code enforcement officers and a vehicle, and has reaped below $8,000 in revenue in the first 10 months of the program.

Avon’s parking management program allows three hours of free parking and then charges users at a rate of $1 per hour. Parking in the town is free after 5 p.m. and all day in the 1 Lake St. lot by Harry A. Nottingham Park. Those who fail to comply with the system will receive a $35 ticket, which increases to $85 if unpaid after 45 days, and goes up again if it remains unpaid.

The first phase of the parking program launched on Dec. 18 and applied to the town’s most popular parking locations, including the Avon Recreation Center, the Avon Library and Avon Town Hall. The second phase launched on Jan. 22 and applied to town streets, including East and West Benchmark Road, Lake Street and West Beaver Creek Boulevard.

The town has received “very few complaints,” about paid parking on the street, Daly said.

In July 2024, the system for parking registration at the recreation center was transitioned to the Pay2Park platform, causing initial complications for many users. “Most of our complaints about parking were at the Rec Center,” Daly said. “It’s taken some time, (and) a huge amount of education.”

Now, however, the system is “a lot more intuitive, and a little bit quicker,” than the town’s previous parking permit system, and may be expanded to other high-traffic sites around Avon, said Krista Jaramillo, the Avon Police Department’s administrative services manager.

Over 32,000 users have parked at the recreation center since December 2023, with 3,500 so far using the new platform.

The town has issued just over 1,000 warnings and 43 tickets so far, of which 22 were paid and five dismissed. The remaining number are currently unpaid. Half of the enforcement thus far has occurred at the recreation center.

Jaramillo pointed out three distinct areas for improvement in the town’s parking management programs: event parking, oversized vehicle parking and parking at Avon Elementary School.

During town events, there is often parking overflow, which the town is working to address. Visitors often come to town with oversized vehicles that do not fit in hotel parking garages, pushing them onto town parking areas. While oversized vehicles are currently permitted to park overnight at 1 Lake St., that is not a long-term solution, particularly as the lot undergoes renovations next year, Jaramillo said.

There is free parking at Avon Elementary School when school is not in session, but during school hours, the parking lot is allocated specifically for school purposes, though this is difficult to enforce with no required registration. An Avon Elementary School permit for employees is “already in the works,” Jaramillo said.

Jaramillo mentioned that many who park in Avon continue to confuse the town’s parking management program with that of Hoffmann Commercial Real Estate, which was implemented in November 2023, much to the chagrin of many Avon residents and business owners.

The town’s parking management program is completely separate from Hoffmann’s system. During the meeting, Eric Heil, Avon town manager, said that town staff continues to look into whether it needs to — and if it can — intervene to support residents and business owners who continue to experience challenges with the system nearly a year after it was created.

“I hear all the complaints a lot. I’ve talked to individuals, they are super frustrated,” Heil said. “It leaves a bad taste in their mouths — visitors, regional residents and the locals here, without a doubt. It’s a challenge, because it’s very much a private property matter, and it’s not a usual area of regulation or government involvement to start directing that or getting involved on a government authority basis, but we’ve certainly heard all of those complaints.”

The town has already butted heads with Hoffmann over the parking lots’ signage, which users initially found to be sparse and confusing. Hoffmann has since updated the signage.

“I do believe that the signage when you pull into their lots is sufficient now, whereas it was completely insufficient when they first rolled it out,” said Amy Phillips, Avon mayor.

On the business side, Avon’s finance staff is “gathering data on the sales tax performance of commercial properties in and out of Hoffman Commercial where they’re doing parking management to see if the parking management is causing any effect compared to other commercial,” Heil said. The sales tax information will come to council at a meeting in either November or January.

“I do think there is a need to have some legal exploration as to what options the town has on a regulatory basis,” Heil said.

Oct 10, 2024

Oct 9, 2024

Oct 9, 2024

Oct 9, 2024

Oct 8, 2024

Oct 6, 2024

Oct 6, 2024

Oct 6, 2024

Oct 7, 2024

Oct 7, 2024