New Bedford Guide Your Guide to New Bedford and South Coast, MA
The City of New Bedford is kicking off a parking and transportation study of the Downtown and the Waterfront.
In a joint effort between the city’s Traffic Commission and Harbor Development Commission, the City is undertaking an assessment of the parking needs of an extended downtown area and portion of the waterfront. The study is being undertaken by Stantec Consulting Services, and is jointly funded by MassDevelopment and the City.
Stantec will review and analyze existing parking conditions including parking inventory, utilization, policies, management, regulations, and pricing, and analyze the parking supply and demand compared to existing land uses. The Parking Study will help ensure that the parking system is consistent with the City’s revitalization goals.
Community input and public participation are essential in determining the needs of the community. Stantec and the City of New Bedford will be utilizing a variety of stakeholder meetings, public events, and an online survey to gather feedback from residents and businesses.
Community outreach is beginning with an online parking survey, where public input on personal parking habits is being sought: how and where motorists use City parking facilities, and ways in which the City might improve parking are among its chief elements. The survey will be available to the public through March 6, 2018 and is available at: www.newbedford-ma.gov/ParkingSurvey
The City and Stantec will also be holding two public workshops on Tuesday, March 6, 2018. The first is from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., and will consist of a roving tent downtown between Purchase Street (north of Union Street) and Custom House Square. The second workshop is from 5:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in the conference room of UMass Dartmouth’s Star Store campus at 715 Purchase Street.
For more information, please contact City of New Bedford’s Department of Planning, Housing & Community Development at (508) 979-1488 or visit the City’s website at www.newbedford-ma.gov.
You’ll never get people downtown as long as you have meters. Why shop downtown when you can go elsewhere and park free? That is even less of a problem than downtown workers feeding meters or knowing parking enforcement personnel and getting away with taking spaces they shouldn’t. The bottom line is, the city needs to get people downtown. The revenue from parking meters isn’t worth the reality that downtown is DEAD. The easier you make going downtown, the more likely you’ll get businesses that can survive.