San Luis Obispo

An action plan of 35 recommendations that advance core citywide goals of carbon emissions reduction, boosting biking and walking, and infusing more flexibility into parking management to anticipate a variety of curb uses, from outdoor dining to cycletracks to smart loading zones.

Walker Consultants led a comprehensive update of the  City of San Luis Obispo’s approach to downtown parking and access.  The update to the Access and Parking Management Plan puts a much greater emphasis on actions that will help the City achieve ambitious goals for emissions reduction and increasing walking, biking, and transit.

The Plan focuses on both the busy, tourist-heavy Downtown and numerous residential permit districts established to help mitigate parking overflow impacts from the nearby CalPoly University. Since the previous Plan update in 2011, the City has adopted goals to become net-zero in carbon by 2035 and to cut its drive-alone mode share from roughly 67 percent to 50 percent. This Plan also responds to major investments in the programs the City is bringing online, including the construction of a new public parking garage set to open in 2025, the buildout of protected bikeways, and an expansion of their on-street parklet dining program.

Walker led a robust data collection and analysis effort of existing parking and mobility conditions, policies, and plans to evaluate challenges and opportunities in creating an accessible downtown for residents, employees, and visitors. Our best practices review connected learnings to outcomes that make sense in the context of San Luis Obispo’s local needs. community outreach focused on workshops and surveys, interviews with stakeholders, and focus groups with community organizations to gain their input on recommendations. Walker then worked with City staff and leaders to assess programs and policies.

With land for parking at a premium, Walker’s framework for the Access and Parking Management Plan sets a path for modernizing parking management and increasing access by maximizing available land.  Our action plan of 35 recommendations directly relates every recommendation to the core citywide goals of carbon emissions reduction, boosting biking and walking, and infusing more flexibility into parking management to anticipate a variety of curb uses, from outdoor dining to cycletracks to smart loading zones. Walker’s work on the Plan provides a more complete picture of citywide mobility, helping to connect parking and curb management to other City plans to expand transit service and build out the bike routes and sidewalks identified in the Active Transportation Plan.

The updated Access and Parking Management Plan provides a detailed a five-year action list for Parking Services and partner agencies to implement. The actions include performance measures to gauge progress and guidance on how to balance improvements in areas as diverse as per-based parking pricing, use of flexible commuter benefits, and triggers for establishing new parking management districts. Most crucially, the Plan explicitly identifies responsible agencies, timelines, the scope of impact, tradeoffs, and inherent in launching or revising any given program or investment.