By Larry Cohen, CAPP

Negative public feedback (“not in my backyard”), better land use, cost, debt, planning for repurposing of old garages, is new inventory really needed, and the ongoing emphasis to reduce single-occupant vehicles (SOV) in favor of alternative forms of transportation have me wondering if all of these issues have helped create an era of a new dirty phrase: “We need to build a new parking garage.”

The public has stopped the building of one garage (and maybe another) that I had planned because their perception is that a new garage is not needed even though the facts have been presented showing otherwise. Of course the issue of “not in my backyard” is the prominent issue in all communities, but are we also dealing with a new era of “less new garages?” Our architectural and parking engineers will hopefully tell us this is not true.

I’d love to see more discussion on this topic.

Larry J. Cohen, CAPP, is executive director of the Lancaster Parking Authority.