ROME — Making more parking available for residents and visitors will be a key focus of the city’s Downtown Revitalization Initiative efforts in the coming year.

As the Erie Boulevard Downtown Transportation Alternative Project takes shape, plans are to include some additional on-street parking in that project, said city Deputy Director of Community & Economic Development Matthew Andrews. Greenman-Pedersen, Inc. Consulting Engineers, of Albany, is working on the approximately $2 million TAP project, which is being paid for through state funding.

The TAP Project, “would Include some additional on-street parking that currently doesn’t exist along the access road,” said Andrews. “We’re adding nine spaces as part of the project for the access road. The project is focused on improvements for bikes and pedestrians, but we also want to include parking improvements.”

More parking

Meanwhile, as part of the surface lot project, Andrews said the city is also looking at working with the Common Council, Mayor’s Office and city Department of Public Works to identify on-street parking additions that don’t yet exist, but are “right” for parking.

“We’re exploring the Liberty Street curbside from James to Madison streets, Madison Street, Eilenberg Lane, and Gigliotti Avenue, based on a field survey,” Andrews said. “It looks like we can realize almost 140 additional on-street parking spaces by legislating on-street spaces, with street painting and signing.”

And as the city worked through the process of better identifying parking challenges, the deputy director of Community & Economic Development said opportunities for parking were also identified downtown.

“The city started a parking study in 2019 to look at on-street and off-street parking in downtown blocks, and the study was updated in May 2022,” said Andrews. “We looked at the super block of downtown — Liberty Street at the boulevard and from James to George streets — which included a field survey of existing private and public parking, and utilization of those spaces morning, afternoon and night, and also on weekends and week days. … It also includes recommendations for better utilizing parking and adding parking on-street and curbside parking, for areas that don’t have parking currently, but could.”

While the eastern and western downtown “superblocks” present challenges, Andrews said there were still opportunities found to add parking while also leaving plenty of room for further development.

“The council will start looking at parking during the first quarter of 2023 with some legislation,” he added.

This story is part three of a series dedicated to city projects that will be developing in 2023.