8 minute read
MOBILITY & TECH
Perspectives on the Curb
By Robert Ferrin
DYNAMIC CURB MANAGEMENT has continued to grow as both a disruptor to our industry and an opportunity to strengthen the way we serve our communities. During the past year, the topics of smart loading, commercial goods movement, and data-driven solutions have risen to the top of our conscience as the new frontier in parking and mobility.
IPMI’s Research and Innovation Task Force reached out to some of the leading curbside practitioners in our industry to better understand how they are tackling the challenges at the curb.
Benito Pérez, CAPP, AICP, CTP
Policy Director, Transportation for America. Formerly Curbside Management Operations Planning Manager, District Department of Transportation
Curb demand has been evolving drastically in the past few years. With the rise of e-commerce, just-intime delivery, and technology disruptions in how we traverse our city, there are increasing demands to access the curb for people and goods. More recently, as a result of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency in the District, there has also been greater attention to the use of the street realm for pedestrian movement and outdoor commerce, only intensifying the demand and use of a constrained curb in a dense urban area. This has had ramifications on parking meter revenue, which is an input to our public transit funding formula. Additionally, this has had DDOT’s Parking and Ground Transportation Division re-evaluating its procedures, tools, resources, and skillsets to meet this evolving and intensifying demand for the curb. How are you and your team using technology, programs, and policies to address these effects?
For the past several years, DDOT’s Parking and Ground Transportation Division has shifted from a reactive posture to a more objective, data-driven, context sensitive proactive posture in addressing the needs and emerging challenges at the curb. That has included also introducing new technologies in collecting and analyzing data (i.e. ArcGIS Collector or Survey 123, Tableau, ArcGIS Pro), rethinking our practice to be more inclusive (i.e. how do we design and communicate curb access and vehicle storage to facilitate accessibility (i.e. mobility, language access, multimodal harmony), as well as pursuing education and outreach campaigns in the community to stimulate a conversation about the curb (from where we came, where we are now, and where the community would like to orient the curb toward the future to meet their needs and neighborhood vision).
What’s your longer term planning look like around the curb?
DDOT’s Parking and Ground Transportation Division is revisiting the underlying policies and framework around the curb, which has been historically oriented toward low-occupancy vehicle storage. Much effort to date has involved rethinking curb access and vehicle storage management in high density commercial areas, where
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we have implemented strategies such as demand-based curb pricing, experimented with dynamic curb management technology, and have been repurposing the curb for transit priority lanes, cycletracks, as well as pick-up/drop-off zones (PUDOs). Near term efforts take such evaluation into residential areas of the District, where vehicle storage is the predominant curb use, yet there is an intensifying need to meet accessible and equitable people and goods pickup/drop-off movement from residential land uses, neighborhood retail, as well as community uses (i.e. schools and libraries).
First, take a breath. You are not alone with your curb challenges. Second, take some time to understand your challenges. Some challenges have multiple perspectives to them, and to understand them, you will have to look beyond your own lens and reach out to community stakeholders for their feedback and ideas. Third, don’t try to recreate the wheel. Ask your peers, ask the industry on their ideas of tools and practice. Also be willing to share, for again, you are not alone. Lastly, don’t be afraid to fail and iterate. The District has spent time piloting solutions, with some being successful, and others not so much. But we share such experiences, so others can grow from it, or rethink the problem and approach from a different lens.
Brandy Stanley, CAPP
Parking Services Manager, City of Las Vegas
We are losing on-street parking spaces and revenue in favor of pickup and dropoff, delivery and outdoor eating needs; there is no reason to believe that trend will do anything but accelerate. But enforcement of these short-term parking sessions is such a problem, we are frantically searching for technology and policy that is effective. We are making extensive use of public-private partnerships to try to find programs that will effectively manage the curb and reduce congestion. Providing TNC staging areas in unused parking garages at night is one program and another is the use of space sensors, cameras and kiosks to monitor pickup and drop-off zones for TNCs and taxis. The system also sends alerts to enforcement when there are violations and gives us usage information we need to make decisions. Both programs are public private partnerships with multiple technology and support companies. Figuring out how to enforce the regulations we apply to make the curb function and longer term beginning to recover some of that lost revenue.
Leverage the creativity of technology providers—but you have to blend that creativity with a realistic sense of what will actually work and be effective. For example, the idea of requiring everyone to download an app to charge for picking up and dropping off a passenger is really a non-starter right now. It may well be the longer-term solution but it’s not feasible today as a standalone solution. This is an exciting time for our industry—frustrations abound, but so does opportunity and the collaboration we are experiencing with technology providers is truly exciting.
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Robert Ferrin,
Assistant Director, City of Columbus
An increase in on-demand deliveries and passenger pick up and drop off activities is making us rethink how we allocate curb space, what technology we use, and how we define success. These new demands are significantly different than the demands we have been used to and the management strategies we’ve employed to meet those historical demands.
Our team is piloting new technology and adjusting policies and programs to provide for more flexible use of the curb lane. Whether it be testing on-demand reservation and monetization systems or providing availability and location information on a digital platform, we understand innovation is required to maintain access to the curb. Our team has developed an RFP to allow the market to provide us scalable solutions to dynamically manage the curb. We are creating flexible policies to be more nimble in how we allocate curb space, and working with delivery companies to better understand their needs for curb space.
Be open to new ideas and piloting new concepts. Break out of the “this is how it’s always been done” mold and search out creative ways to dynamically manage the curb. The effects of COVID have impacted parking demand and provided municipal operators a unique opportunity to rethink how curb space is allocated for the highest and best public use.
What’s Next
Our vision and perspective on the curb will continue to evolve—to stay up to date on how that’s changing and what’s next, here are a few suggestions: ■ Keep reading—and sharing—what you find. Drop our task force a note at info@parking-mobility.org and stay tuned for Parking & Mobility magazine each month. ■ Check in with your colleagues on
Forum. These conversations in our members-only online community are powerful—and bite sized, and come straight to you in the daily digest. ◆
ROBERT FERRIN is assistant director with the City of Columbus, Ohio, and a member of IPMI’s Research & Innovation Task Force and Board of Directors. He can be reached at rsferrin@ columbus.gov.
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