Cars are vanishing from downtown Santa Rosa
New parking study points to huge opportunity to improve downtown
A new study commissioned by the City of Santa Rosa estimates 74 percent of all parking spots in downtown go unused on a typical busy day, a decline from 42 percent in 2019. The study is the first look at parking demand since the COVID-19 pandemic and paints a picture of an underutilized downtown overburdened with ugly blocks of concrete and asphalt.
As reported in my previous blog post, Half of Santa Rosa is Missing, hundreds of homes and businesses in downtown Santa Rosa were destroyed in the mid 20th century to make room for today’s parking infrastructure, which currently covers 25 percent of the entire surface area of downtown. When combining streets and highway 101, nearly half (47 percent) of the entire surface area of downtown Santa Rosa is just car infrastructure.
Which is why I’m so excited about this report. Plummeting parking demand is a huge opportunity for Santa Rosa to rebuild what was lost, only better. The report also comes as the City Council has waffled in its interest to develop parking infrastructure following the 2019 study.
How to get involved: The City Council will host a study session about the report at their 8/23 meeting at 3pm (see staff report here). You can join either in person or via zoom at Meeting ID 862 0817 8715.
What you could say:
Parking spaces currently occupy 25% of the surface area of downtown Santa Rosa, that’s more land than is used by all sidewalks, parks, housing, public buildings, and highway 101 combined.
Yet according to this report, 74 percent of all parking spots in downtown go unused on a typical busy day, a decline from 42 percent in 2019. That’s a staggering waste of public space.
The city should move immediately to replace the Third Street and D Street garages, which are falling apart and are in need of $12 million in repairs, with mixed use commercial and/or residential developments to bring more customers, workers, and vibrancy to downtown.
The city should also consider opening Mendocino Avenue exclusively to pedestrians as part of the current Reimagine Mendocino project.
Additional considerations:
Money. The city’s parking division is losing money and has been drawing down its reserves for years to cover its deficits. Furthermore, the public garages at Third Street and D Street are falling apart and are in urgent need of $12 million in repairs. These two garages provide a combined 643 spaces, just 7 percent of all spaces. If both garages were gone today the parking occupancy rate downtown would increase from 26 to 28 percent. They literally don’t matter. Tearing these garages down will save $12 million in capital costs and give the city the opportunity to have something useful built in their place.
Vibe: Replacing car infrastructure with pedestrian infrastructure is more profitable as it creates a more pleasant vibe where people want to spend more of their time and money. Downtown Santa Rosa needs this transformation to compete with regional rivals like Napa and Healdsburg. More housing downtown also creates built-in customers and workers for downtown businesses without needing to drive or park.
Housing: Santa Rosa’s current housing pipeline meets just 67 and 75 percent, respectively, of its minimum state housing development obligations for moderate and lower income housing. Wildfire risks prevents building these units in the urban wildland interface surrounding the city, and the city has already adopted goals and objectives to densify downtown. Also, as mentioned previously, more housing downtown creates built-in customers and workers for downtown businesses. Converting downtown parking to housing makes a ton of sense.
Climate: Cars and trucks are the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in California. According to the California Air Resources Control Board, even with the projected maximum uptake of electric vehicles, Californians must drive 25% fewer miles if we’re going to have a shot at meeting our 2030 carbon emissions reductions goals. As it happens, 26 percent of all trips in Sonoma County (44 percent of which are entirely within Santa Rosa) are less than two miles long, yet the vast majority are taken by car because there’s no pleasant or safe alternative. Due to the close proximity of services, the best place to locate new housing with the lowest possible impacts to traffic and emissions is downtown.