 Cars fill the parking spots on King Street Wednesday afternoon. The Town of Boone is testing various strategies to deal with football game day parking and traffic congestion issues. Photo by Jordan Paris
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by JUSTIN HERBERGER
News Reporter
Saturday’s home football game against McNeese State University was a test of Boone’s latest strategy to solve parking issues downtown.
The plan, developed by McLaurin Parking, utilized “parking ambassadors” (as well as a lot on Queen Street, Queen Street’s metered spots, the Town Hall parking lot and the Horn in the West lot) to separate traffic based on whether drivers planned on parking to shop downtown or attend the football game.
Orange cones lined the parallel parking spaces down King Street, reserving them for patrons of Boone’s downtown businesses.
“We wanted to address the concerns of the downtown businesses as their parking spaces downtown were being monopolized by the football fans, to the exclusion of their regular customers,” Town Council member Rennie W. Brantz said. “The goal was to keep King Street open for regular customers.”
Football game attendees were directed to the overflow lots where they were charged $15 for the day.
“There were a couple of complaints,” Brantz said. “But by and large, it appears that [the plan] worked fairly well.”
Brantz said the plan would be reviewed this week to identify problems and their solutions.
Owner of
Melanie’s Food Fantasy on King Street, Melanie M. Patterson said her
establishment “[was] impacted in a bad, negative way.”
She said the restaurant made only 30 percent of what they would typically make on a Saturday in the fall.
Patterson
said the parking ambassadors responsible for assisting customers
outside the restaurant were not on duty until about 8:30 a.m. Saturday,
and parking was effectively closed on King Street until ambassadors
arrived.
This
affected stores with opening times prior to the availability of parking
assistance such as Melanie’s (8 a.m.) and Boone Bagelry (7 a.m.).
“It was almost like we had been forgotten,” Patterson said.
Brantz
said improvements to the plan might include more signage in the area to
direct drivers to their appropriate parking spot.
Lynn T. Hallowell, co-owner of The Trolley Stop, said she thinks the
plan is a move in the right direction, but “the cones were kind of
confusing to people.”
It is
possible some patrons were confused into thinking the cones were placed
in order to reserve the spots for football fans and not them, the
opposite of the plan’s intended purpose, storeowners and managers said.
Patterson said despite the problems she experienced Saturday morning, “I do have faith that they will work it out.”
Nicole M. Molloy, manager at Our Daily Bread Delicatessen on King Street said business Saturday was down.
“Usually we’re really slammed on Saturday,” Molloy said. “We’re used to having a line out the door.”
Sherri J. Moretz of Mast General Store said business was down Saturday,
but she does not believe parking limitations are the only contributing
factor to downtown businesses’ troubles.
“As ASU’s success has increased, our business at the store on game days has decreased,” Moretz said.
She said many people who used to shop downtown before the games have decided to join the tailgates to celebrate with other fans.
Photo by Jordan Paris | The Appalachian
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