The city of Naperville has issued a survey designed to gather community input on downtown parking. The survey, which can be found on the city’s website, primarily focuses on whether the recent conversion of two-hour parking spaces into 30-minute parking spaces continues to satisfy customers’ needs.
Purpose of Downtown Parking Poll
Jennifer Louden, deputy director for the city’s Transportation, Engineering and Development group, said the city would like to find out if that change should be permanent.
“At various points during the pandemic, we received positive input on the 30-minute spaces,” Louden said.
The city had converted a majority of its on-street parking spaces designated for two hours into 30-minute parking spaces to help downtown businesses in navigating the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. Louden said the change helped businesses efficiently fulfill curbside pick-up orders.
The survey also covers some other aspects of downtown parking.
“We ask them some general questions to try to gain insight into how often people are visiting downtown and how long a typical trip lasts,” Louden said.
Community Input Needed
The city encourages residents and community members to weigh in with their input.
“In general, whenever we’ve done surveys regarding downtown parking, we typically get a lot of valuable feedback on this topic,” Louden said. “It’s definitely a topic of interest for a lot of people.”
The last day to participate in the city’s downtown parking survey is Sept. 8.
Next Steps
The city will then analyze the information that’s gathered from survey respondents.
“We will work with the Downtown Naperville Alliance to develop a recommendation regarding on-street parking time regulations, whether they should want to make 30 minutes permanent, convert back to two hours, or even if there’s something in between that we think would meet the needs of the downtown patrons and businesses,” Louden said.
A downtown parking recommendation will come to the Naperville City Council for consideration at a later date.
Naperville News 17’s Megann Horstead reports.
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