Parking in Corvallis: Exploring Solutions took place on Thursday evening, February 6, 2020, at the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library. This program featured effective alternatives to address parking challenges and was sponsored by the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition’s Land Use Action Team and the League of Women Voters of Corvallis.
Speakers included local and state professionals who provided brief presentations and participated in a panel discussion about various alternatives to parking challenges.
Presenters and topics included the following:
- Jeff Petry, Parking Manager for the City of Eugene, described Parking Benefit Districts and how they have worked in his community.
- Meredith Williams, Director of OSU Transportation Services, provided an update on OSU’s proposed Transportation Demand Management Plan.
- Evan Manvel, Land Use and Transportation Planner for the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development, talked about the relationship between parking and affordable housing.
Following their presentations, speakers responded to questions and suggestions from audience members.
This event was the second in a series of programs focused on parking in Corvallis. The first program in October 2019 provided community members an opportunity to identify parking issues in neighborhoods and downtown for people with diverse needs – employees and employers, students, commuters, and people with disabilities.
The goal of these public meetings was to identify what trade-offs community members would be willing to make related to parking, in order to inform decision makers as changes to parking management programs were proposed. Concurrent with these public meetings, the City of Corvallis had retained Rick Williams Consulting of Portland to conduct a parking audit for the community.
Following nearly three years of study and discussion, the Land Use Action Team presented a set of recommendations to the Corvallis City Council titled “Recommendations re. Parking through the Lens of Climate Change”.