Innovative Parking Management
CHS Consulting Group is an industry leader in innovative parking management. Recent projects include developing parking and curb management strategies for a 17-mile corridor for the Los Angeles City Planning Department, a downtown parking study for the Cities of Napa and Redwood City, and several transit-oriented development projects with BART and VTA. CHS also participated in a pair of landmark parking projects: the 2009 SFCTA On-Street Parking Management study that resulted the first parking pricing pilot project in the U.S., and the MTC’s toolkit, Reforming Parking Policies to Support Smart Growth, designed for small city downtown and TOD developments.
Terri O’Connor, CHS Parking Practice Leader, offers 20 years of experience in parking planning and management. Terri’s consulting work emphasizes a community-based consensus-building process to develop guiding principles, which are used to steer the development of future parking and TDM plans.
Areas of Expertise
Downtown Parking Studies
Parking Policy Reform Projects
Nationwide and International Parking Best Practices
Helping Local Agencies Achieve Vision Zero and VMT Reduction Goals
City of Napa Downtown Parking Management Plan
Project Overview
The City of Napa chose CHS Consulting Group to create a detailed parking management and mobility strategy based on existing policy and transportation context and anticipated parking demand in partnership with existing planned efforts in the City’s downtown and Oxbow neighborhoods.
CHS Role
CHS served as the prime consultant. Our work included:
Identifying and preparing an inventory of relevant and applicable policies and regulations pertaining to transit-oriented/supportive land use practices, parking requirements, and TDM strategies. The key was to identify potential changes to parking requirements to ensure they produce the “right” amount of parking.
Evaluating existing occupied land uses and parking occupancy to develop a location-specific shared parking demand model.
Estimating future parking demand based on proposed build-out of the City’s Downtown Specific Plan.
Multimodal Transportation and Parking Policies for the Five Wounds Urban Village Specific Plan
Project Overview
The City of San Jose is currently creating the Five Wounds Urban Village Plan Update, an "umbrella” plan that consolidates the four approved Urban Villages that surround the future 28th Street / Little Portugal BART Station. The current plans cover roughly 526 acres, including the Five Wounds, Little Portugal, Roosevelt Park, and 24th / William urban village plan areas.
CHS Role
CHS Consulting Group developed and executed the methodology for multimodal gaps analysis, multimodal audits, and overall parking assessment, including integration of pre- and post-pandemic data into a parking demand model. We are also responsible for the multimodal and parking policy development (in process).
The project includes an assessment of existing gaps in the multimodal transportation network and strategy development as well as shared parking analysis and district strategy development. The overall goal is to preserve existing neighborhoods, small businesses, and housing as new development occurs around the future BART station.
Ventura-Cahuenga Boulevard Specific Plan Transportation Analysis
Project Overview
The Los Angeles Department of City Planning (LADCP) is updating the 20-year old specific plan for the 17-mile-long Ventura-Cahuenga Boulevard Corridor as well as preparing a plan EIR. The purpose of the update is to streamline and modernize development regulations that make it more difficult to achieve local community and specific plan goals; these regulations are also inconsistent with current citywide and state policies. As part of the specific plan update, LADCP requires supporting transportation services including a VMT analysis, a study of parking management and requirements, a sidewalk management study, TDM strategy recommendations, and an impact fee study.
CHS Role
CHS Consulting Group is leading the transportation analysis. As part of this work, we evaluated how the specific plan impacts VMT in relation to established CEQA criteria. We assessed current parking usage on the corridor and recommended revised parking requirements and new parking management guidelines. We also evaluated sidewalk usage and devised new sidewalk management recommendations to incorporate new uses such as outdoor dining and micromobility. Finally, we studied the feasibility of amending parking in-lieu and supply fees, as well as project impact fees. CHS staff worked closely with LADCP and LA Metro staff along with local stakeholders to reach consensus on study recommendations.
