What's in Store for Parking in Downtown Beverly?

BEVERLY, MA – Beverly's parking meters – the cash-only, $.25/hour meters installed many years ago – may look different in the future. Jason Schrieber, of Nelson/Nygaard Consulting Associates, presented the firm's findings from a parking study in downtown Beverly on Thursday night.

The study found that parking in downtown Beverly is never at full capacity, but its 5,000 public and private spaces are around 50 percent full even during its most busy times. But the perception of parking in Beverly may be different for someone who can't find a spot right in front of their destination.

The study was completed through a Massachusetts Downtown Initiative grant, in an effort to track issues with downtown parking and come up with solutions.

"There’s been a dramatic change in the parking situation downtown, which is usually a sign of good things," said Aaron Clausen, Beverly's director of planning. He referenced the many new restaurants, entertainment venues, and other businesses that have drawn people to downtown Beverly.

On-street public parking in downtown Beverly is pretty much the same across the board: $.25/hour, two-hour limit, with some meter-free side streets, and a small handful of 15-minute free parking. Schrieber suggested the city change that, the way Salem has.

Part of the study's recommendation was to regulate the most popular spots on Cabot Street through pricing by raising some meter costs to $1/hour or higher, and implementing more free parking in areas farther away from the core downtown.

The core downtown is loosely defined as the area from The Cabot and Chianti's to City Hall and the Broadway intersection. The firm's recommendations also included establishing a fund for parking revenue to be invested back into the downtown for things like better lighting, more defined crosswalks, and landscaping.

Mayor Michael Cahill cautioned at the meeting that the study was just a starting point for discussion, and while the city plans to do something differently, not every recommendation will be implemented.

Schrieber also called Beverly "a gem" from a traffic engineer's perspective, because it's possible to park once and walk to multiple destinations: A grid with different uses, as opposed to areas like Route 114, where drivers have to repark for each errand even if their destinations are in the same radius.

While Beverly's meters are the most antiquated parking system Schrieber has seen in a while, he joked, he recommended focusing on the parking app (the stickers for which are on most meters in Beverly), which lets users pay from their phones.

Cahill said the next steps will be to continue the conversation about parking in downtown Beverly, and eventually put a change forward.

Readers, what do you think of parking in downtown Beverly? Do you use the mobile parking app? Let us know in the comments.

Image via BevCam, Nelson/Nygaard presentation