Project Overview
Parking is an essential component of the transportation system and significantly influences the quality of everyday life. Parking decisions and policies affect the cost of goods and services, housing affordability, transportation choices, stormwater management, and air quality.
This plan outlines a 10-year vision to reimagine parking in the Rockford Region. It aims to enhance quality of life, optimize land use, and remove development barriers. The plan builds on local successes, such as RMTD’s shuttle services, pandemic-era outdoor dining conversions, and City Market events that repurpose parking lots as community spaces.
History of Parking
How has parking transformed in the Rockford Region?
Use the slider on the image below to see how development in downtown Rockford has shifted from 1939 to 2021.
Historical Parking Practices
As societal needs for automobiles have changed, so has parking in the United States. In the early 1900s, the curb was the only place allocated for parking in American cities, as the modern parking lot did not yet exist. Personal automobile ownership rates surged in the 1920s, leading to an increase in the number of automobiles on urban roadways. Private and public parking facilities were created to reduce vehicle congestion and alleviate safety concerns caused by the increase in automobiles.
As the 20th century progressed, the development of parking facilities allowed the personal automobile to emerge as the dominant mode of transportation in the U.S. Beginning in the 1940s, municipal zoning codes mandated minimum designated parking space requirements for each developed lot to ensure anyone traveling by automobile would have a place to park at their destination. Parking requirements alongside the increased distance of travel allowed by automobiles, prompted the expansion of American cities into undeveloped areas outside of their original urban cores. Historical parking patterns have significantly shaped the development of the cities we live in today.
Today's urban planners strive to find a balance between too much and too little parking to ensure city development supports economic, environmental, and social well-being.
Benefits & Burdens
The Benefits & Burdens of Parking
Parking impacts economic development, environmental health, land use patterns, and community safety. Parking offers many benefits when effectively managed. However, parking can also impose economic and community burdens and often results in adverse effects on the environment. In Part 4 of the Parking Reimagined Plan, you can learn about the need for balanced parking solutions through the benefits and burdens of current parking practices.
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Parking Trends
Let's reimagine parking together!
Cities across the United States are embracing new ways to improve their parking infrastructure. Current parking spaces typically only serve the purpose of storing vehicles. This is a waste of valuable urban land that can instead serve multiple functions and support environmental, economic, and community well-being. Parking spaces can be transformed to improve our quality of life! Explore some ways parking in the Rockford Region could be transformed by clicking the icons on the image below.
Goals & Strategies
Parking Reimagined Goals & Strategies
The goals and strategies for the Parking Reimagined Plan, included in Part 7 of the plan, were developed using national and local trends, regional data, and public input. The goals are organized in order of priority, as determined by the public.
Goal 1: Improve transportation infrastructure, access, and connectivity throughout the region to decrease vehicle congestion and demand for parking.
- Strategy 1.1: Address sidewalk, shared-use path, and bicycle network gaps that impact connectivity.
- Strategy 1.2: Incorporate bicycle parking into public parking facilities.
- Strategy 1.3: Examine the feasibility of procuring a regional car-sharing service.
- Strategy 1.4: Increase the frequency and range of shuttle services to designated park-and-ride lots during highly attended events and busy downtown hours.
- Strategy 1.5: Pilot a regional mobility hubs program.
- Strategy 1.6: Conduct a public education campaign to improve the perception of public transit and active forms of transportation.
Goal 2: Improve quality of life by fostering active, engaging, and safe public parking facilities that encourage people to connect with their surroundings.
- Strategy 2.1: Improve and increase parking facility lighting, signage, and security measures.
- Strategy 2.2: Increase pedestrian access into and out of parking facilities with pedestrian-friendly infrastructure.
- Strategy 2.3: Increase beautification of parking facilities through art installations.
- Strategy 2.4: Increase wayfinding signage to aid navigation to parking facilities and nearby destinations.
Goal 3: Encourage multifunctional uses of parking facilities and repurpose underutilized parking into spaces to better serve the community.
- Strategy 3.1: Encourage temporary conversions and multiple uses of parking facilities.
- Strategy 3.2: Support infill developments within identified vacant and underutilized parking lots.
- Strategy 3.3: Repurpose underutilized parking spaces into functional greenspaces such as urban meadows, community parks, stormwater retention basins, or rain gardens.
- Strategy 3.4: Expand the availability and prioritize accessibility of electric vehicle charging stations and designated electric vehicle parking spaces in parking facilities.
Goal 4: Reduce the environmental impact of parking facilities to support local ecosystems and mitigate the effects of climate change.
- Strategy 4.1: Increase the use of stormwater best management practices in parking facilities.
- Strategy 4.2: Implement cool and permeable pavements into current and future parking facilities.
- Strategy 4.3: Assess the feasibility of installing solar canopies within public parking lots.
- Strategy 4.4: Adopt or update landscaping guidelines and regulations to require a minimum amount of maintained native vegetation and shade trees to be incorporated into parking design.
Goal 5: Balance parking demand, parking space utilization, and parking efficiency through policy and pricing.
- Strategy 5.1: Update parking ordinances to better reflect parking demand, utilization, and development types.
- Strategy 5.2: Analyze parking demand and space occupancy to implement demand-based pricing.
- Strategy 5.3: Establish parking benefit districts in select areas to generate revenue for parking maintenance and other public service improvements.
- Strategy 5.4: Encourage shared parking agreements within commercial and industrial areas.
- Strategy 5.5: Encourage employers to provide parking cash-outs to employees who do not wish to utilize parking subsidies.
