Parking in Madison parking lots is set to get more expensive after the city's transportation commission voted to increase special event parking fees from $8 to $15 at a popular lot off State Street and near The Sylvie.
The commission voted 7-3 to approve an increase in special event parking fees at the South Livingston Street and State Street campus lots, nearly doubling the rates, as well as a $2 increase at Wilson Street, State Street to the side of the State Capitol, Overture Center and Capitol Square North lots.
The motion does not need to be presented to city council and will take effect July 1.
Stephanie Cox, the city's parking manager, said the fee increase is intended to raise funds to cover increased staff and parking maintenance costs and to modernize technology at parking facilities. But the fee hike has sparked outcry from some Madison city council members and residents over fairness and accessibility.
Rita Mae Rees is co-director of the Art + Literature Institute in South Livingston, which is directly across from the parking lot where parking fees will increase to $15. She worries about how the nonprofit arts space will be able to continue hosting free events if audiences can no longer afford to pay for parking.
She said people going to the Arts and Literature Laboratory have no other option than the Livingston Parking Lot — there isn't even a handicapped on-street parking space.
“This is not good for the local arts economy as a whole, nor for low-income residents. We've worked so hard to provide free or low-cost programming, as well as support local artists, musicians and writers, provide them with a platform and a means to continue to make a living in Madison,” Rees told the Cap Times. “This really hampers our ability to do that.”
She added: “We try our best to make people feel welcome and accessible. If people have to park in the car park and pay $15 for a free event, they're definitely going to feel unwelcome.”
How does the city justify these fees?
Special event parking is provided during events that draw large crowds as a way to minimize crowding. During these events, parkers pay a special event fee upon entry, and their ticket is valid until 7 a.m. the following day. The city increased this fee from $5 to $8 in 2016.
Since then, the pandemic has strained the parking department's resources, “depleting our reserve fund balances,” Cox said, leaving little additional revenue to pay for facility maintenance, technology upgrades and staffing.
“Our current fee is $8, but we know that doesn't cover our operating costs,” Cox said at Wednesday's committee meeting, which heard more than three hours of public comment and discussion. “We've been barely breaking even since the pandemic began.”
Last fall, the city tried proposing to increase parking fees from $10 to $20 depending on the level of attendance at an event, a proposal that ultimately fell through after public criticism.
Cox told Cap Times that this intermediate approach is necessary because reserve balances are currently depleted.
“We're a corporate institution and we have a reserve balance that covers all expenses. Before the pandemic, we had about $21 million. That's gone down to $14 million. We've had losses of about $7 million in 2020 and 2021,” Cox said.
Cox said the parking division “nearly broke even” in 2022, with revenue and expenses of $13 million each, and he expects similar numbers for 2023.
Cox acknowledged that the fee changes “may adversely affect certain groups,” but argued that Madison is trying to minimize the burden by reducing reliance on automobiles, citing bus rapid transit, bike-share programs, improved bike lanes and affordable housing in high-traffic areas as examples.
Fairness concerns emerge
Those options aren't a good enough solution for some, including Councilwoman Sabrina Madison, District 17, and Councilwoman Dina Nina Martinez Rutherford, District 15. At Wednesday night's meeting, they both asked that the resolution to increase parking be referred to the Disability Rights and Equal Opportunity Committee.
“I want people to understand that poor people are the ones that are really bearing the brunt of everything. I want people to put more attention and wisdom into this issue and think about the people that are doing the really hard work of carrying the responsibility and the burden,” Martinez-Rutherford said. “I want the people that are affected to be part of the discussion. I think that's the bigger issue.”
Councilwoman Dina Nina Martinez Rutherford, D.C., 15th District, was among those criticizing the plan to significantly expand special event parking at two city-run parking lots.
The Transportation Committee voted 5-4 to refer the issue to the other two groups, but the motion failed because the committee needed six votes to pass the measure.
Transportation Committee member Chris McCahill, managing director of the state's Smart Transportation Initiative, said he voted against the proposal because he believes keeping parking fees the same would not solve the issue of fairness in event attendance.
“I think it's worth mentioning the need to think about those who are most disadvantaged, and I hope we should always do that,” McCahill said.
“There is certainly a problem, but it cannot be solved by keeping parking fees artificially low,” he added.
McCahill, who promotes environmental sustainability and equitable economic development in transportation through the nonprofit State Smart Transportation Initiative, said Madison faces a classic dilemma familiar to anyone who “thinks too much about parking,” which can be summed up in the phrase, “Parking is cheap, it's available and it's convenient, but you can't have all three.”
“We're racking our brains trying to solve the problem of how to address the needs of people who are really under strain, and we really can't see what the path forward is going to be,” McCahill said.
Cox said it's not realistic to charge some people lower rates and others higher rates. Businesses and private companies can buy parking for their employees in packages, but that's all the city can do to subsidize parking for some people at this time.
“There's this great idea of being able to sell tickets for an event and parking fees at the same time,” Cox said, “but some event parking lots are overcrowded, and we don't want to rely on staff to decide who gets a particular fee.”
There are few alternatives
Wednesday's discussion raised larger questions about procedure for Rees of the Arts and Letters Institute, who didn't know about the proposed increase until the day of the meeting.
“I'm really surprised we weren't told about this beforehand. It left us all scrambling and surprised because not a lot of people were contacted to find out what the impacts were going to be,” Rees said.
The city's Cox said he wasn't aware of any opposition to the resolution until the day before the meeting, and he agreed that communication about the proposal could have been handled better.
“The conversation has expanded more than we thought it would, but we think there are some areas we can improve on as we consider making changes in the future,” Cox said. “This is a little bit of new territory for us.”
Cox was referring to a quickly conducted equity analysis that drew criticism at Wednesday's meeting. The report briefly mentioned that rate hikes could have an adverse effect on “those experiencing financial hardship” but didn't go into much more detail.
The Madison City Councilman argued it's important for the city to know “how many people” within a given area of parking could be affected by the increase.
“There were some things in the equity analysis that I didn't notice. It said there could be economic impacts on low-income people, but it didn't make any recommendations,” Madison said.
Cox told Cap Times that part of the problem is there aren't many alternatives.
“There's nothing we can do right away,” the car park manager said, “We'll be meeting with the other committees to discuss car parks in general, how they're currently being run, what the impacts are and see if there are ways we can mitigate the impacts.”
She also acknowledged that the issues currently being discussed “go a little further than we've done in our fairness analysis thus far.”
“There are ways to improve and we're going to look at it. This is a long-term effort that we have to do and we'll make sure we look at any changes we make from every standpoint,” Cox said.
Cox said Wednesday night's discussion made it clear that parking rates need to be reviewed annually, rather than every three to four years. While rates don't need to increase every year, Cox hopes that a more consistent assessment will mean future price increases won't be as much of a shock to the public.
