When the Van Buren Parking Garage was first proposed, I received a lot of criticism because I favored it. In fact, I thought it was one of the better ideas I’d heard. And it has, I think, lived up to my expectations. I can’t imagine what we would do without it.
Critics of the project said it would never be used and would just sit there empty. From what they knew about the parking situation downtown, it just wasn’t needed. It would, they said, stick the merchants in the special taxing district that services it with an unnecessary expense they couldn’t afford.
They were right, except for one thing. We could call it the pain anticipation index. The only thing that determines how congested any downtown will be is how much of a pain an auto owner thinks it will be to find a parking space there.
It has nothing to do with signage or traffic control devices because everything happens in the driver’s head while he or she is still at home. After one or two experiences, drivers have a rough idea how long they will have to prowl around looking for a space at any given time on any given day.
Once they decide they know the answer, they aren’t likely to test it. They don’t even try to drive downtown. They simply change their shopping and dining destinations so they will be able to park nearby. That’s why it looked as though the Van Buren lot wasn’t needed. Drivers had given up on Naperville’s downtown.
So how do you deal with this problem? Well, public transportation eliminates most of the pain, but our residents apparently hate that idea. Otherwise, it’s difficult. We must have about 300,000 cars around here, and we have public parking for 1 percent of them. Every time new construction lowers the pain, more cars flood in until the pain goes back up again.
The city’s electronic count of available spaces in the lots is wonderful, and we’re grateful for it, but all it does is quantify the pain. How many spaces must be left in the lot you want to use before you’ll take the chance and drive in? Everybody has a different threshold, but most won’t try if there are fewer than 30 spaces.
That’s why what Naperville eventually decides about the Central Parking Facility is so important. This week, the city purchased a little land adjacent to the lot in case it’s needed for expansion. However, it was good to hear several council members imply they want to hold off on that for a long time. That’s smart. If the deck is removed for a couple of years, people will just give up on the restaurants and stores that depend on it. Their owners have told me that they’ll be gone from town long before that.
The question I think we need to ask is: How many spaces do we need to provide sufficient customers for our downtown stores and restaurants throughout the day and evening? Once we know that number, we can plan so the number never drops below that. And we need to give up on the fantasy that our folks will walk from lots on the edge of town. I’ve asked the question publicly, and, unanimously, the short answer is they won’t.
This is necessarily long-range stuff. It’s expensive and complex. For example, I’m in favor of incorporating bicycle lanes in the new Washington Street bridge even though there are no practical accommodations for bikes downtown. The reason is that if we don’t, there never will be.
Naperville has done a lot of things right and is prospering because of them. That doesn’t mean we can’t make a disastrous mistake, like rebuilding the Central Parking Facility prematurely. We just have to understand that folks will behave the way they want to, not the way we think they should.
