Pickens Exploring Parking Options

As they add new features and events intended to bring more people to town, Pickens officials realize there's going to be a need for more parking in the city.

Street and Planning Committee members recently meet with the firm of Goodwyn Mills and Cawood to explore options to create additional parking in Pickens.

Cathryn Gerachis, Planning and Landscape Architecture Department Head for the firm, presented two options for adding parking on Main Street.

“One is putting a median down the center of the street,” she said. “The idea is you have one lane of traffic in each direction and your angled parking. You're not changing your curb lines but you are taking out two lanes of traffic.”

The remaining lanes would have to be widened, Gerachis said.

She said DOT “could probably live” with those changes, provided it complies with certain regulations.

“They didn't really have any heartburn,” said the firm's Kevin Laird, of DOT officials' reaction to that option.

“Their one immediate recommendation was to do a study at the Ann Street intersection,” said City Administrator Katherine Brackett.

Laird said they'd looked at published traffic counts for Main Street.

“It's around 9,000 average daily traffic,” he said.

Brackett said the results were surprising.

“My perception and what people's perceptions are is that Main Street is crazy, so busy,” she said. “When they're coming in Highway 8 past our Walmart, that's like 15,000 people, and even up to the intersection at McDonald's is 11,000. But they're not all going down Main Street. They're going somewhere else.”

The second option would “get more parking where it's most accessible, particularly as it supports retail activity,” Gerachis said.

She used Highlands, NC as an example, which has “a single row of angled parking down the center of their Main Street.”

“You can pull in from either side,” Gerachis said. “It is just wonderful.”

Pickens' Main Street is 76 ft across “from curb to curb.”

“That option is not a DOT option,” Gerachis said.

But that doesn't mean that option is off the table – DOT could reroute Highway 183 to Cedar Rock Street.

The portion of Main Street that is also Highway 183 would no longer be DOT-controlled.

“They said this could be done, it just wouldn't be a state highway,” Laird said.

“It'd be taken out of DOT's area of responsibility,” Gerachis said.

“They said, 'This could be your parking lot,'” Brackett said.

“If we put that angled parking lot in the center, it will feel like a parking lot,” Gerachis said. “You've got the one way traffic that's so common in a Walmart or grocery store parking lot.”

Gerachis said the arrangement of businesses in the downtown area is advantageous, especially on the north side of Main Street.

“They have parking behind and they have on-street parking,” she said. “And they have the benefit, although there are a number of vacancies there, of being attached businesses. From a pedestrian perspective and from a retail perspective, being connected is important.”

The planners and city officials also spoke of freeing up parking spaces for businesses near the Pickens County Courthouse, while still being respectful of court staff and residents who need to go to court.

Encouraging courthouse staff to park in the lot across from the courthouse, instead of on Court Street, would free up parking for businesses and customers on Court Street.

“That is a lot of parking that could be utilized for retail or office or whatever back there,” Laird said.

“It would be nice to have more parking, but if we could free Court Street up and talk employees into parking on the other side, that might be a good trade off,” said Mayor David Owens.

The additional angled parking could do the opposite of what city planners intend, he said.

“My biggest fear with is, if we reroute trucks and make Cedar Rock larger for people to go through, then that's going to take business off of Main Street,” Owens said.

Laird said the firm wants to get public input on both options, especially from merchants.

“You could look at it two ways – you're taking the traffic away – which you may or may not be, or you could be making it a much more desirable location to be,” he said.

“You've got to have that conversation,” said Larry Wells with the firm.

“Taking traffic away, it's a different issue in a downtown than it is on a bypass or a major artery,” Wells said. “You overcome that taking away business, you've got to create something that actually makes more people come in there, that there's something interesting enough, pleasant enough to get folks coming there, as opposed to casually driving by and deciding they're going to buy a pair of shoes or something.”

Gerachis also suggested the city explore using side streets that are already paved – such as Garvin Street – for more parking.

“That's cheap, because all we'd need to do is stripe, compared to building a parking lot,” Brackett said.

Input meetings will be held at a later date.