Last Thursday evening, Jenkintown Borough Council held a special meeting and open forum to discuss parking management. Given how everyone seems to complain about the parking as much as they do the weather, one might think that more than ten people would show up to discuss what they might actually do about it. Nonetheless, it is admittedly rare when I have something positive to say about Borough Council, but I found this meeting productive and helpful, but what will result from it remains to be seen.
Is the parking problem ever solved? In my experience and observation, no. Never. No matter how much you provide, people want more. As Deborra Sines-Pancoe said, the parking problem is a good one to have. When parking demand exceeds supply, it means that Jenkintown is doing something right.
Business district parking
The first agenda item mostly discussed rules governing existing spaces within the business district, which unfortunately burdens the community with an oversupply of parking. We’ve already mapped out the total parking inventory in Jenkintown, and sadly, we have too much open space for an urbanized district. This represents a tremendous loss of potential revenue for the borough and the school district. Multistory buildings generate more tax revenue than parking lots.
This map shows Jenkintown’s core parking inventory from 2016. Green represent lots. Red lines represent on-street parking. Old York Road runs south to north from left to right through the middle of this image. The library lot is not shown, but is just off to the right.
Remember, every year the JSD cites the decline of valuations of the business district as a major reason for raising taxes. The new apartment buildings going up won’t change this because they’re residential and they will house future students.
…every year the JSD cites the decline of business district valuations as a major reason for raising taxes.
Council believed that building a block-size municipal lot would benefit the community as a whole, but no one provides hard evidence to back this up. Some business owners nevertheless claim resident subsidy helps their business, but fail to acknowledge the hit homeowners have experienced with annual 3-6% school tax hikes.
The lot was completed thirteen years ago. Where’s the dividend for homeowners? Typically, a municipality wants business to support residents, not the other way around. Jenkintown has it backward.
Parking permits
Since the Borough established the resident parking permit program, it has repeatedly tinkered with it in response to complaints and requests. Right now, a resident may apply for a maximum of three permits, which are indeed claimed by some households on streets as densely developed as Leedom and Cedar.
The Borough also provides for temporary and visitor permits. At the meeting we heard about requests for permits for nannies, health-care workers, and out-of-town visitors. We also heard about requests from new residents moving into apartments they knew had no parking, expecting the Borough to accommodate their vehicle(s).
ParkMobile
Personally, I have no issue with the idea of ParkMobile or its competitors, however this system presents potential problems. Right now, I have four parking apps on my phone, and I have to make sure that they are all updated and functional before I travel into an area that I know or suspect has such a system.
Listening to the discussion, ParkMobile seems to dominate this space, at least in our area. Right now, Abington, Cheltenham, and Philadelphia use ParkMobile which sets its own rates and can change them according to the terms of the contract. Jenkintown charges fifty cents per hour on the coin meters, but one dollar in most ParkMobile zones. The discussion did not address future rate increases. In theory, the ratio could change from 50-50 to 40-60 in ParkMobile’s favor, at which point we send more to Atlanta than we collect for Jenkintown.
The problem facing those without smartphones was not fully addressed at the meeting. Yes, you may call the toll-free number on the ParkMobile signs and pay by credit card, but the user must first establish an account. Compared to pulling into a space and dropping a quarter into meter, this adds an unacceptable layer of complexity for some — but especially for older drivers.
The parking reality
Council and the community it represents needs to understand this is not a problem. For people who live in a densely built, older community, parking scarcity is a fact of life. Councilor Anne MacHaffie said herself that these are public streets. No one is entitled to a space.
The town laid out its street grid in the era of pedestrians, horses, and trains. This contributes to the charm of the community and a major reason why people want to move here. Any attempt to, as David Ballard put it, stuff ten more pounds of stuff into a five pound sack corrodes Jenkintown’s appeal.
What should Council do?
Council cannot solve this problem, but it can make it worse. The Borough’s current page on parking permits spends 950 words to explain the policy, up from 689 in 2020. It nibbles around its edges in a futile attempt to accommodate residents and businesses alike, but the effort has done next to nothing to help revive Jenkintown as a retail center or bring in revenue. And it never will.
Once the Borough Council accepts the reality of the situation, it must establish simple, easy-to-understand rules and stick to them. Will they have the cojones to do that? Don’t hold your breath.
Parking permits: Two per household, $50 per year for the first one, $75 for the second. (If three, then $100 per year). No more visitor passes. No special rules for special reasons other than those already set for the disabled.
Meters: Meters barely pay for themselves, and they don’t foster safety. Meters in theory increase the churn of spaces, which businesses want. However, so does free parking with time limits and strong enforcement. Also, what happens when ParkMobile becomes the only game in parking automation and raises its rates beyond what Jenkintonians will tolerate. What is Plan B?
Planning: As stated at the meeting, the Borough now wastes a tremendous parking resource with its underutilized library lot, but it is poorly connected to the business district. It’s not actually very far away from it, but it’s not a pleasant walk. Council needs to correct that.
Finally, for those wondering about my standing in this issue, yes, I have my own driveway. If our house didn’t come with off-street parking, my wife and I would be living somewhere else that did.
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