RULE 19 | PRICE PARKING BASED ON ITS VALUE
- Jason H.
- Jul 15
- 5 min read
WALKABLE WICHITA: LESSONS FROM JEFF SPECK
BY RAMI STUCKY
A new paid parking plan has been introduced in downtown Wichita. To a certain extent, urban planner Jeff Speck would agree with it. “Price parking based on its value,” Speck argues in Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places. “When parking is too cheap, parking gets too crowded. And when people park too much, a bunch of bad things happen: people circle in search of spots; they double park; or they become frustrated and drive back home without shopping. Next time, they drive to the mall instead,” he notes.[1] The downtown suffers, and a city’s walkability decreases. The issue with the City of Wichita’s paid parking plan, though, is that there are very few valuable parking areas in its downtown.
If parking is not already too crowded, why did the City of Wichita implement paid parking? The idea originates from a half-hearted attempt to implement a 2019 plan drafted by the city in consultation with Walker Parking Consultants. The city devised the plan because its parking and maintenance fund was depleting. Parking downtown was frustrating. Despite the general availability of parking, some residents struggled to find parking close to their desired destination. Others felt like there was too much parking. Where could residents park? It was not clear. The meters were old. Signs were unhelpful.
For much of 2018, Walker Consultants met with residents and city staff to address the problem and create a vibrant downtown. They conducted parking counts. They assessed the strengths and drawbacks of the city’s parking enforcement system. Then, they provided several suggestions. The city could hire more parking wardens (called “ambassadors”) to issue fines to drivers who exceed the city’s free, time-limited parking.[2]
They could improve signs and wayfinding to better direct Wichitans to free public lots.[3] They could narrow travel lanes, widen sidewalks, and increase bicycle parking to encourage more bicycle, transit, and pedestrian travel.[4]
They could also create parking zones: areas of Wichita where “data collection and management can be tailored to meet area needs.”[5]
This was the bit that the City of Wichita liked the most. Walker suggested that parking could either be time-limited or metered, depending on demand. If demand is low, keep time-limited parking. If residents abuse time-limited parking by moving their cars to the other side of the street, then apply a time limit to the entire block.[6] If demand is high and parking occupancy is at or above 85 percent for an area, then implement paid parking. Walker provided some ideas about where managed parking could be implemented. They added all the off- and on-street public parking areas and, in June 2018, counted the number of cars parked there. They concluded that downtown parking occupancy is incredibly low, at about 39 percent on weekdays and 27 percent on weekends. Such low usage should not necessitate the city charging for parking in general.[7]
There were some locations where usage was close to, at, or even exceeded 85%. One example is on Waterman, between Main and the Arkansas River, near Century II. Throughout the week, most of Delano on Douglas is at or exceeding the recommended capacity. On-street parking on side streets, such as Texas, Oak, and Sycamore, can also be quite congested. Further east, some stretches of Douglas, particularly at Broadway and Emporia, are busy throughout the week. During the workday, Market is at capacity along the stretch adjacent to the District Courthouse, and so are Elm and Main adjacent to the Sedgwick County Courthouse and Jail.[8] These are some of the few places where paid parking might be beneficial. However, Mallory Baker of Walker Consultants told the Wichita City Council on March 21, 2023, that the 2019 document was just a “plan to make a plan.” She continued: “We have data from 2018, but staff should be collecting data regularly to see what occupancy levels look like and then make a decision based on that.”[9] Although the 2019 plan provided some ideas, it was explicitly silent on where paid parking should be.
In July 2025, the city rolled out paid parking on a select portion of Douglas. This is a good idea and conforms with Walker’s suggestion and Speck’s argument. On August 26, 2024, businesspeople and residents gathered at Norton’s Brewing Company for a meeting to discuss the new plan. Most in attendance opposed it. However, two business owners on Douglas––one of a hair salon and another of a coffee shop––complained that their customers could not find regular parking. The coffee shop owner noted that they only owned a few private spaces, and customers had to jockey for spots on the street. Staff at the hair salon speculated that residents of the surrounding apartments were permanently parked in front of the business.[10] Paid parking in this district will address those concerns.
However, the rest of the rollout seems haphazard. Delano and Old Town were among the districts to see the most congested parking, according to Walker. Yet, they are currently exempt from the paid parking rollout. Without those districts, few streets, lots, and garages in the downtown area merit paid parking. Furthermore, there appears to be no intention to replicate Walker’s analysis and investigate real-time parking occupancy, rates, and availability information downtown.[11] Other aspects of the plan, such as strategically selling off underutilized surface lots to promote development, do not appear to have been seriously considered. Residents are questioning why no transit investments have been made in conjunction with the plan’s implementation. Such inconsistencies lead to a parking management plan that, in some aspects, addresses a real need, particularly on Douglas. In other aspects, it is incomplete, upsets many residents, and does not entirely help make downtown Wichita a vibrant, walkable destination.
[1] Jeff Speck, Walkable City Rules: 101 Steps to Making Better Places (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2018), 44.
[2] “2019 City of Wichita Parking & Multimodal Plan” (City of Wichita, 2019), 22, https://www.wichita.gov/DocumentCenter/View/13088/City-of-Wichita-Parking-and-Multimodal-Plan-PDF.
[3] “2019 City of Wichita Parking & Multimodal Plan,” 14.
[4] “2019 City of Wichita Parking & Multimodal Plan,” 44.
[5] “2019 City of Wichita Parking & Multimodal Plan,” 34.
[6] “2019 City of Wichita Parking & Multimodal Plan,” 31–33.42.
[7] “2019 City of Wichita Parking & Multimodal Plan,” 12.
[8] “2019 City of Wichita Parking & Multimodal Plan,” 63–88.
[9] Mallory Baker, “Wichita City Council Meeting March 21, 2023,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N73m4wsswc.
[10] Nortons Brewing Company, “Town Hall Meeting: Q&A about the Downtown Parking Initiative” (125 N. St. Francis, August 26, 2024).
[11] “2019 City of Wichita Parking & Multimodal Plan,” 21.
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