Time to reinvest in Worcester's municipal parking
As New England's second largest city, Worcester has a leg up on the big city to the east. Worcester has an urban core with a lot of positive development, a slew of colleges, a growing number of cultural resources, a rich housing stock. Plus – it's affordable.
Travel a half hour west of the booming greater Boston metropolis, and you'll find plenty of office space, large warehouses and retail opportunities at a fraction of the cost for similar space inside of Route 128. Worcester is finally delivering on giving those hard-to-attract Millennials the urban experience they crave, without them forking over their whole paycheck for a small apartment.
This is why the movement of raising the prices on any of the basic costs of living in Worcester – from taxes to water to mortgages – needs to be approached with great care. Yet, with certain amenities – in this case, parking – the time has come where the city should be less concerned with being the affordable option and more concerned with having nice options.
As you can read in this issue's cover story, “The Price of Parking” from Staff Writer John McIntyre, Worcester's various parking authorities have kept the rates at the city-owned garages, surface lots and on-street spaces artificially low at less than $10 per day, in order to entice residents and businesses to come downtown. Furthermore, the city has negotiated special discounted rates with large employers like the U.S. Postal Service and the Hilton Garden Inn to bring rates down to a fraction of the private market. Largely, this strategy has worked, as the downtown is filling up with retail and commercial businesses and new apartments and hotels are coming online within the next few years. These incentives, though, have come at the expense of the parking facilities, of which many are becoming dilapidated. Those garages have little to no budget for maintenance and need $17.7 million in repairs.
Those parking rates should be allowed to rise to a reasonable level, and the large-user discount deals should be reworked to generate a little more of the needed cash for repairs. The city Department of Public Works & Parks already has received approval for the first year of a five-year plan to raise rates at city parking garages roughly $1 per day. We side with the Worcester Regional Research Bureau's findings in its June study on parking that the city should move to implement the rest of that pricing plan.
Worcester's downtown affordability can take a modest, incremental hit if it means the parking facilities will have a modern, clean and safe feel. For visitors driving in from out-of-town, parking often will be the first aspect of Worcester they experience. A 67-year-old garage that is crumbling and offers poor signage on where visitors should enter and exit leaves an unmistakable bad first impression.
The economic revitalization of Worcester, especially its downtown, has been slowly rolling forward for decades. Today, there is tangible momentum, with more and more businesses and residents wanting to be downtown. The progress has been steady, and we have reached a tipping point for the city. That tipping point means city officials shouldn't feel so insecure about the appeal of downtown that they must continue to subsidize the low parking rates. Downtown is at a point where the quality of the parking facilities is more important.
We don't relish the idea of anyone paying more, and all those businesses with discount deals will have to stomach an increase in their parking fees. Yet, if it means Worcester municipal parking facilities get a tangible upgrade, it's a worthy investment. For the city to cash in on its current momentum, improving those facilities is more important than subsidizing them with zero reinvestment.
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