North Kingstown Wickford Village Parking Study Public Meeting - September 1, 2023
North Kingstown Wickford Village Parking Study Public Meeting - September 1, 2023
On September 1, 2023, PAR Corporation presented the first phase of a parking study for Wickford Village in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. The meeting was the primary community engagement event to gather input from residents and stakeholders about parking conditions, data collected, and future needs. The study was awarded in March 2020 but paused due to the pandemic, resuming in spring 2023.
Presentation & Data Collection
- Inventory: 629 public parking spaces and 386 private parking spaces (1,015 total) were identified in the study area, which includes Brown Street, Main Street, West Main Street, residential streets, Wilson Park, and the town wharf.
- Parking Turnover Data: Drone footage and field reviews were conducted on Thursdays (11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m. and 4:00–6:00 p.m.) and Saturdays (11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m. and 7:00–9:00 p.m.) in spring and summer 2023. Peak occupancy reached 100% on Brown Street at 1 p.m. during spring and summer Saturdays and summer Thursdays. The spring Saturday afternoon average on Brown Street was 95% occupied. The Brown Street lot peaked at 78% average occupancy (spring Saturday afternoon), but public spaces within it may have been at 100% when private spaces were excluded. The wharf lot and Wilson Park showed lower occupancy, indicating underutilization.
- Surveys & Interviews: Six-question interviews with visitors and 12-question business surveys were conducted in spring and summer to understand parking behavior and awareness.
Public Comments & Testimony
- A resident asked why the study focused on peak periods; the presenter (John Shevlin) explained that peak demand drives the need for accommodations.
- A resident noted that the wharf lot is underutilized and many visitors may not know it exists. Shevlin agreed that wayfinding and awareness could be part of the solution.
- A resident questioned whether the Thursday data spike was due to a festival; the presenter clarified that dates were chosen to avoid special events.
- A resident asked if the study tracked how long cars stayed; the presenter said no for turnover data, but survey data captured parking duration.
- A resident asked about enforcement of parking regulations and whether employees could be mandated to park elsewhere; Shevlin said it would involve working with business owners and local enforcement.
- A resident raised concerns about speeding on West Main Street and whether that was part of the study; Shevlin noted the study focused on parking but included crash data (about 10–12 crashes per year over four years, some related to parking maneuvers).
- A resident asked if there was an industry standard for parking capacity; Shevlin indicated the goal is to have some surplus capacity beyond the peak (around 95% occupancy as a threshold).
- A resident expressed that the wharf lot is too far from commercial activity and questioned the feasibility of using it for visitors, especially older demographics.
- A resident noted that cars are parking on grass areas along West Main Street due to lack of sidewalks; Shevlin said they would coordinate with DOT on state roadway improvements.
Key Takeaways & Next Steps
- The study has not yet reached recommendations. The current phase is data collection, and no solutions have been proposed.
- The team emphasized that the issue may be more about parking management (e.g., wayfinding, employee parking, signage) than adding more spaces, given limited land.
- Possible strategies mentioned include better signage, shuttle/trolley connections to Wickford Junction, technology for real-time space availability, and encouraging use of underutilized lots like the wharf and Wilson Park.
- Next steps: analyze summer survey data (collected through Labor Day weekend), analyze future parking demand from vacant businesses, develop recommendations and long-term strategies, and present final findings at a public town council meeting.
Meeting Transcript
Well, good evening, everybody, and uh just want to thank you all for giving up some time tonight to uh come to this meeting. This is a very important meeting for us who are doing the study because we are here to go ahead and gather as much information as we can. So we hope there's an open dialogue. Uh we'll go ahead and ask, you know, let people go ahead and ask questions of us, and then we'll also break up into groups if you want to go talk more one-on-one with us. So, again, thank you for going ahead and taking part in regards to this overall study and being part of where we're going tonight. So, just a brief introduction in regards to who we are. Uh I'm John Shevlin from PAR Corporation. I'm currently the CEO of PAR, but uh until about 18 months ago, I headed up to the transportation division at Par. Uh so in my years of experience at PAR, I've been involved in a lot of parking studies similar to what we're doing for town of North Kingstown, the village of Wickford. Uh, we've been involved in downtown Bristol and East Greenwich, Rhode Island. I also been involved in the city of New London, and then several other communities who are all very similar to what we have going on down here as far as Bristol and East Greenwich. New London is a little bit bigger, uh, no doubt, but we've also done parking studies throughout the uh northeast and stuff. So we're very familiar in regards to procedures. Uh everyone is every single product's been different, every park's been different results. Um so the biggest thing is that you know, again, we want to go ahead and learn from all you folks tonight in regards to what you see here. And with me is Hi, my name is Annalise Boylan. I'm a civil engineer here at the Park Corporation. I've been with Parabout for about four years now. I grew up in Bristol, Rhode Island, so a very similar thing to Wickford Village. So I was excited to have the opportunity to work on this project. And just a little background about me. I am doing a master's in urban planning with specialized courses in historic preservation, but my background is in civil engineering. Sure. Sorry about that. So just to tell you like where we're at right now and how we got here. So we were awarded a contract back in March of 2020 to go ahead and do a parking study, and I think about about a week and a half or so later, Nicole, the pandemic hit. So it suddenly went on hold, and uh, you know, we were waiting to do this project for quite a while now, and it came back to life this spring. So we've gone ahead since we started this back in late April, uh early May, we've been very uh working diligently as far as going ahead and working on the first phase of project was a data collection, which we'll get into more details when we go ahead and we get into the uh into the project. You know, this is the first phase. This is what I consider to be the most important phase, is really the basis for what we do as far as all our analysis. So any input we can get is really uh well received and will be used as part of the the overall study for the project. Um, you know, the analysis will go through in regards to all the data collection processes that we did and how we reached out to people to date. This is really one of the last things we want to do is get more input one-on-one with the residents once we have some information. So that's why we're here tonight. Once we're done with that data collection, then we'll begin our analysis. We'll be looking at the existing conditions in regards to what is out there for parking and also in regards to how it's being used currently. Um we look like I said, we looked at different conditions, and then we'll start looking at the future. There is some areas that are in some buildings that are vacant right now. If they do become vac uh, you know, filled up and for different types of uses. We want to determine what impact that will have for parking in the future. So that's gonna be all part of the assessment. We have no solutions right now. Just I want to just lay that out front right now. Like we have not gotten into that phase yet. We have you know really but no ideas in regards to what needs to be done. We have spent time down here looking around just to get a feel for it, but we have not come up with any solutions. We really need all this information in order to go ahead and do our assessment properly. So uh, which we'll go ahead. We do know that Whitford Village is very special and unique, and we certainly want to go ahead and take into account the character of Whitford Village. So any solutions will certainly take that into care uh into consideration as far as make sure we don't impact the character of what Whitford Village is as we go through the study.
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