“Politics is not worrying this country one-tenth as much as where to find a parking space.” – Will Rogers
For decades, when Knoxville city officials asked local folks to visit downtown Knoxville, what they heard in response was the sound of their own voices echoing back at them from the mostly deserted central city canyons. If someone went downtown, finding a place to park wasn’t a challenge. It’s the age-old law of supply and demand: no demand, lots of supply. But high demand means less availability and higher prices.
With downtown Knoxville enjoying a renaissance in popularity as an entertainment, eating, and business location, and the University of Tennessee experiencing record admissions, the issue isn’t if people are coming downtown, but where will they park? It’s an administrative and political opportunity. Or headache. Parking and politics have long gone together like peas and carrots – or fire and gasoline. Someone may never think parking an issue until they’re driving on downtown streets searching in vain for a space. Then, it’s a problem, if not a crisis.
Parking is as essential to downtown viability as oxygen is to the body: it doesn’t matter if you build it, because people won’t come if they can’t find a parking place – or when they do, they can’t pay.
Even finding a space can mean difficulties. Knoxville is replacing its parking meters with a digital parking app. A frequent downtown visitor said that the app worked fine at first, but it’s been a headache ever since. At times, he’s followed the digital parking directions: scanned the code and entered his payment information, only to be told there were “technical difficulties.” At other times, the app has told him he was in an available parking zone, but after entering the zone number, the system wouldn’t let him pay. He once even enlisted the help of a downtown parking officer, who couldn’t make it work either.
Parking studies are popular with political entities for three reasons, not necessarily in this order: to find out what the best course of action is on a subject of interest to voters and taxpayers; to take the heat off themselves by letting an third party make recommendations that can be accepted or rejected; to validate what they’ve already decided to do; or some combination of the three.
Two parking studies were conducted in 2024, one by the city, one by the Downtown Merchant’s Group. As reported by WATE-TV, the city’s study, conducted by Walker Consultants, found, “Between 2019 and 2023, the city’s 163-page study reports that the parking system had a negative net operating income of $279,311,” and needed more than $2.3 million from the city’s general fund. The study said, “Walker projects that the parking system will continue to rely on general fund transfers unless changes are made to increase parking revenue and/or decrease expenses.” Various increases in parking rates and parking fines are presently underway. If you were putting money on the table in Vegas, you’d want to bet on more future revenue increases than spending reductions.
The study counted 20,800 downtown parking spaces, most of which are privately owned. That leaves 9,734 public on-street and garage spaces. The document delves into all sorts of parking-related issues, among them that the elderly, disadvantaged, and people who don’t own a vehicle are “inequitably” paying taxes to support a parking system they don’t use, and that discounted parking encourages people to drive downtown, which could affect the city’s year 2050 carbon emissions goals.
The much shorter (seven-page) Downtown Merchant’s Group study’s primary focus is continuation of free parking on nights and weekends.
As downtown Knoxville’s population grows, and its economic activity increases, so does its political power. The Downtown Merchant’s Group, therefore, has muscles that will only get bigger. But a willingness to flex them can be limited. When Madeline Rogero was mayor, Cumberland Avenue businesses talked of opposing her push to narrow “the Strip” to two lanes. But they backed away, fearing City Hall. There will be an ever-stronger downtown push-and-pull between the needs of workers and visitors and the requirements of parking turnover for business customers, clients, or vendors – and of people visiting government offices.
Parking obviously hasn’t been a revenue source for city government; any government would like to at least break even. But realistically, you don’t see people pitching a fit because parking is being somewhat supported through the general fund. Purely politically, city politicians are better off continuing that practice and saying it’s for the overall public good. But whether it’s taxes or charges, it comes down to money. And if you wonder who’s paying, it’s probably you.
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