Parking in Redwood City Part 2
What’s Next on the Parking Front? 7 Upcoming Parking Improvements
As noted in the first installment of this blog post, “A Guide to Parking in RWC”, there are about 4,000 places to park in Downtown Redwood City. Check out the first installment for some tips about where to find an empty spot.
The City has also taken a number of parking-related actions to increase the number of Downtown parking spaces and make existing parking spaces easier to use. (When will we get new meters, right?!) This second installment highlights upcoming improvements to Downtown parking.
Creating New Parking Spaces
1 — Later this month, 900 new downtown parking spaces will become available when the Crossing 900 building opens. (The building will house the new headquarters of cloud storage company Box. Welcome to the neighborhood!) These 900 parking spaces will be used by the employees in the building during the day, but they’ll be open to the public on nights and weekends.
2 — City Council approved a five story office project at 815 Hamilton that will have its own 88 space garage, which will be open to the public on nights and weekends. It will also be connected to the city’s public garage on Jefferson. This connection will create a second exit from the Jefferson garage, which will make the garage easier to park at, enter and exit. This project is currently under construction and is expected to be complete in the fall of 2017.
3 — In October, the Council increased the City’s Parking In-Lieu fee for developers from $10,000 per parking space to $25,000 per parking space. These funds will be used to construct another lot or additional parking spaces downtown.
Making Parking Easier to Use
4 — New meters downtown. New meters from two vendors have been installed in select spaces on Main Street and Bradford. After a trial period between October and December 2015, one vendor will be selected and all of downtown will get new meters! The public is encouraged to give feedback on the different meter options during the trial.
5 — Equipment upgrades to City-owned Jefferson and Marshall garages. The new system includes gate arms and more user-friendly pay machines.
6 — New digital signage at City-owned parking garages. The signage, approved and funded, will let drivers know how many spots are available at each city owned parking garage. No more hunting for spaces when none are available! Installation slated for mid-2016.
7 — A two hour parking limit on Broadway to better accommodate shoppers and diners. (Drivers currently using Broadway for long-term parking can use the City’s off-street parking facilities.) The new limit becomes effective December 1, 2015.
BONUS IMPROVEMENT: Automatic organization by color in parking lots. (Maybe someday…until then, here’s a gif.)
