Town of Boone Googles 'Parking'

Background

The exchange of email copied below came on the heels of last week's Boone Town Council meeting inwhich another new development with inadequate parking for the requiredcommercial space was approved across from the Appalachian State University Convocation Center.

Leading up to the Council's 4-1 vote to approve that development, Planning Director Bill Bailey cited "studies" that claimed that modern university students were trending away from car ownership and/or driver's licenses. In what I posted toWataugaWatch about that meeting, I questioned the source of that information and doubted its bearing on the situation in Boone.

1.

To: Bill Bailey, Director, Boone Planning and Inspections Dept.

John Ward, Boone Town Manager

From: Pam Williamson

1/21/2016 6:49 PM

Hi, Bill and John.

I have been watching your live feed of tonight's [Boone Town Council] meeting. Bill says he has some research and has had some discussions with other college towns that demonstrate that 30% of students no longer have cars that need to be considered in development parking needs. 

Could you please send me copies of notes, links to the research, and/or any other materials associated with that contention?

Thanks so much,

-- Pam Williamson

2.

To: Pam Williamson

From: Bill Bailey

1/26/2016 9:29 AM

Ms. Williamson, below are some articles (of the dozens I found) that support the statements I made during the Council deliberations.  As for conversations I had with universities, they were just that -- conversations. I did not take notes so there are none to forward to you in response to this request. As you will see from these articles, I took a very conservative approach when I stated the 30% number.

Below are some of the articles I found to support (or refute) what colleges were telling me about parking:

http://cityobservatory.org/young-people-are-buying-fewer-cars/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/10/14/the-many-reasons-millennials-are-shunning-cars/

http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/automotive/ct-american-car-culture-hits-skids-with-millennials-20150911-story.html

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-09-08/millennials-can-t-afford-cars-and-are-fine-with-that

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3027876/millennials-dont-care-about-owning-cars-and-car-makers-cant-figure-out-why

And this last article which I find interesting in that it speaks to the college age persons and we are talking about student housing...

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/real-reason-millennials-don-t-buy-cars-homes-153340750.html

For more articles, you may want to try Google or Yahoo search engines.

3.

To: Pam Williamson, Bill Bailey

From: John Ward, Boone Town Manager

1/26/2016 10:08 a.m.

Bill and Pam,

I thought you might also find these articles interesting. They both caught my attention during the last two days after parking was both discussed at the BOA and the Town Council Meeting.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/01/24/many-millennials-driving-necessity-say/79274958/

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2016/01/19/drivers-licenses-uber-lyft/78994526/

Sincerely,

John A. Ward III

4.

To: Bill Bailey, John Ward

From: Pam Williamson

1/27/2016 12:57 a.m.

John and Bill, thank you both very much for your Google links.

I have read what you sent and done more research on my own. Turns out there is much debate about your thesis that Millennials are buying fewer cars and don't have drivers' licenses. Most of the links you provided simply rehash a single study which has subsequently been challenged by yet another study and then that study challenged by another study and so on.

The primary article you reference suggests that millennials are buying fewer new cars. Turns out instead they are buying used cars because they are broke. Another article challenging one of the challenges to the primary report you referenced says millennials actually have fewer cars in their own names, again because they are broke. Instead, their parents are buying the cars for Millennials, keeping the titles in their names, but the Millennials are driving them.

As one of the articles warns, "don’t be making claims that can be disproved with a pocket calculator.” Speaking of calculators, even if we assume you are right (which I don't) and 30% of students at ASU won't or don't have cars, what do you intend to do about the 14,000 who your "calculations" clearly show will have to park somewhere? I assume you either have a plan for that the rest of us just don't know about yet, or you have decided to ignore that figure because a Google search tells you Seattle can handle it.

As for driver's licenses, I have some data to offer you that is far more applicable than the disputed national data you apparently are using to try to "imagine" what the parking needs might be for any given project in Boone. Last Summer, we made over 2,000 phone calls to ASU students to determine whether they had NC drivers' licenses that could be counted as valid IDs at the polls. Of the 2,246 we called, six did not have NC Drivers' licenses, and four of those six had a driver's license from another state. I would respectfully submit that this statistical fact beats any of your Google searches as to what pertains to Boone. I'd like to point out that is a valid and actual statistical sample pertinent specifically to Boone that shows just .09% of ASU students don't have a driver's license.

While I realize the need for and certainly support more walking/biking accessibility, it's disheartening to know that Boone's Planning and Inspections Department hangs on abstract national studies from metropolitan cities to justify the parking inadequacy of recent project proposals in our small mountain town.

Maybe that's why we are in such a mess. The traffic is worse than ever, and the town looks worse than it has since I moved here 33 years ago. Yet your Department, your attorney, and Council have the ability, but obviously not the will or desire, to get your hats on straight and do something about it before you completely ruin the place for good.

For a start, I encourage you to come up with some reasonable and sane method of determining what parking needs are adequate for specific developments in Boone before it's too late. While Google searches of national trends is certainly enlightening for overall planning purposes, your reliance on them to discern the parking adequacy for a proposed development in Boone is frankly pretty embarrassing.

 -- Pam Williamson

5.

To: Pam Williamson

From: John Ward

1/27/2016 10:04 a.m.

Pam,

Thanks for the info. In the next few weeks we have a retreat to get guidance for the future from the current Town Council. Parking is on the agenda. Currently, Bill and his staff and the Board of Adjustment are implementing what is in current code. If the expectation changes then Bill will be charged with making those changes for Town Council to approve and then implementing the changes.

Sincerely,

John A. Ward III

Town Manager

Town of Boone