Cape May’s Parking Woes Scrutinized by Committee

CAPE MAY – Cape May City Council has made use of a number of citizen advisory committees to explore issues of interest to the community.
On Nov. 7, council heard a report from one such group on a problem of concern to everyone who resides in or even visits the resort during the summer season – parking.
In this “First Interim Report,” the committee’s focus was on more efficient use of existing spaces.
The Problem
Every summer season parking is particularly problematic in the area of the Washington Street Mall, Rotary Park, and the surrounding streets.
Tourists hoping to visit the mall, enjoy a concert in the park, or patronize a restaurant end up driving in circles seeking a parking space adding congestion to the existing problem.
The report stated that the city’s high season can bring upwards of 50,000 people to a city ill-equipped to deal with the cars that visitors bring. 
The committee points to the lack of intercity public transit forcing virtually all of those seasonal visitors to arrive in their own vehicles.
The city maintains 1,500 regulated parking spaces, 60 free spaces at the elementary school with a summer shuttle service and a few small single level parking lots, all of which can support only a fraction of visitors on any given night in the business district.
Recommendations
Citing statistics that show the city parking rates among the lowest in the county, the report argues that the existing rates do not encourage turnover in business district spaces.
The committee recommends an immediate increase from $1 to $2 per hour in the downtown district. Mapping of the city into parking zones would allow for variable cost meters depending on the proximity to the congested business district.
A further incentive to use “peripheral parking” would include turning off meters on Beach Avenue east of Philadelphia Avenue after 5 p.m. when the meters are no longer needed to regulate beach parking in the area.
The committee went on to call for free shuttle service from that area east of Philadelphia Avenue to the downtown center.
For the city’s meters to easily respond to variable rates or hours of operation in parking zones, the committee also recommends a meter replacement program moving to the more flexible technology offered by parking kiosks.
In addition to the oceanfront park-and-ride plan, the committee called for the implementation of a new transportation service agreement. 
It argued that the existing agreement with the current trolley operator must be “more formal, favorable and business-like,” the committee wants to see a new comprehensive agreement that would coordinate the movement of foot traffic along the city’s major arteries.
Among other recommendations in the report are maximizing the use of the Bank Street parking lot, which involves addressing on-going flooding issues, undertaking a traffic study of the downtown business district, and better enforcement of parking time limits and minimum parking distances from intersections.
The report also calls for better use of technology asking for updates to the city’s website to “move beyond the narrow title of parking meters” and cover “a broader range of paid and free parking information.”
In an age when visitors look to their mobile devices for virtually everything, the city needs to push up-to-date parking information where it can be used effectively.
The committee called on the city to implement its recommendations for the next summer season while promising to keep at the task assigned to it, building on the changes it has already recommended.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.