parking designed for your neighborhood

Covington’s urban core developed long before automobiles, and even for blocks platted in the 20th century, planners didn’t anticipate how many cars residents would park in driveways and on streets. So folks from every neighborhood identify parking as a challenge. The city has taken tentative steps toward parking regulation with meters in the central business district and soon in Mainstrasse, along with a residential parking regime recently instituted in Historic Licking-Riverside. Currently, however, parking policy is managed by a separate city-constituted Motor Vehicle Parking Authority. As many complicated issues as that board has to tackle, however, it’s not well-positioned to assess parking as just one component of the broader streetscape. But we know that better visibility at intersections demands restrictions on parking near corners, and that we can’t start to design bike lanes or chicanes without accounting for ripple effects on parking.

And every neighborhood’s experience of parking challenges is different. Residents jockeying for parking spaces with restaurant patrons in Mainstrasse are thinking about solutions very different from folks in Monte Casino concerned about unregulated parking blocking emergency vehicle access to narrow cul-de-sacs. But with one residential parking permit system already in place and the technology available for dynamic pricing at parking meters, we’ve reached a point where the city can tailor comprehensive parking plans for every neighborhood, responsive to resident concerns.