For nearly 50 years, parking in Salem’s downtown was free. But a new plan from city officials may bring this to an end. Currently, the costs of maintenance, insurance, landscaping and other amenities in the downtown area are paid through a tax on area businesses. Expenses outpacing revenues and increase in street parking use has led to the creation of a new plan for pay-to-park stations. The local business tax would be repealed. Abbey McDonald is the community reporter for the Salem Reporter. She joins us to share what parking currently looks like in Salem and the impact this change could have.
This transcript was created by a computer and edited by a volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. For nearly 50 years, parking in Salem’s downtown has been free; well, free for drivers. But not for downtown business owners, who’ve been subsidizing that parking with a tax. But a new plan from city officials could bring this to an end and make it so drivers have to pay for their own parking. Abbey McDonald covers the city for the Salem Reporter. She joins us now with the details. Welcome to the show.
Abbey McDonald: Thanks for having me.
Miller: So before we talk about the plan that officials are considering, how does the current system work?
McDonald: Right now, if you look at downtown Salem, it’s about a five by six block area where you can park anywhere on the street for free. It’s angled parking and there’s some parallel parking options, or you can go to the parking garages and park there all day. So the on-street parking right now is a three hour time limit and that’s pretty much it. It’s a free-for-all for drivers.
Miller: How much do businesses have to pay in this tax?
McDonald: It depends on several factors to put together this formula which include the type of business, the square footage and the kind of estimated customer demand. So for instance, a department store where people are going to be parking for a long time and it has a lot of square footage and a lot of customers that can use the space at the same time is gonna be paying a lot more than a coffee shop where people are going in and out.
Miller: And it can add up to a fair amount. As you noted that from 2021, from that budget year, you had a graph courtesy of the city of Salem, that Kohl’s for example, is paying nearly $40,000 just in that year for parking. Ross Dress for Less was $12,000 and then it went down from there. And the Book Bin was about $3,500. What does this money go towards?
McDonald: Yeah, so this money goes toward routine maintenance, insurance, electricity, painting, landscaping, signage. All the kind of upkeep needed to keep the parking spaces looking nice and the parkades [multi-level parking garages] usable. Another big cost factor is trash disposal which costs around $37,000 per year in the parkades and on the streets.
Miller: Why is the city talking about changing this system now, after half a century?
McDonald: The city is pointing to inflation. So there was a talk about this about a decade ago. And around that time, business owners got the city to cap the increase of this parking tax at around 3% per year, which the city says is not keeping up with inflation. So the city has been seeing, in recent years, a budget deficit when it comes to the amount collected for these parking spaces versus the amount it costs to keep things looking nice.
Miller: And right now, based on what happened ten years ago, they can’t just charge businesses more to make up for that difference?
McDonald: Yeah, the city told me that if they wanted to rework the tax, it would be a huge jump that would probably see a lot of contention.
Miller: What did you hear from business owners about how this is affecting them, paying $3,000 or $5,000, or $40,000 to the city for parking?
McDonald: Yeah, I know this issue came back up during the pandemic. Business owners weren’t seeing the amount of customer demand which they believed justified paying this amount in parking taxes. But now, in the past six months, things are getting busy again downtown. I know that the [Salem Area Chamber of Commerce] has said that if the city is considering doing an on-street parking metered system, that they would want this tax removed, which appears to be the direction the city is going.
Miller: So as opposed to having both drivers pay for parking and have businesses pay for parking. You’re saying if the city switches, they would get rid of the business tax?
McDonald: Correct. Yeah, they’re looking for the on-street parking to pay for everything.
Miller: There have been some business closures downtown. Have any business owners blamed their closure on this particular tax?
McDonald: Yeah. So downtown Salem has lost several department stores in the past few years. Since 2019 it’s lost three, and those were the big contributors to the parking tax. And now you see that with Kohls and Ross Dress for Less being kind of leagues above how much everyone else is paying. So that’s really affected how much revenue the city’s been making.
Miller: This isn’t only a commercial area though, some people live there as well. How does residential parking fit into this equation?
McDonald: I spoke with Kristin Retherford, who’s our director of urban development, and she pointed to the residents moving into downtown as the people who are being subsidized by the businesses at this point. Some people point to employees who have to park, to work and move around all day, but she pointed to the people who live in apartment complexes and it’s free parking overnight. No one’s checking so they can get away with not having to pay for a paid spot at the parkade.
Miller: Does that lead to any conflict between business owners and residents?
McDonald: It’s been part of a continuing debate people are having, I think. When I spoke with Jim Vu, who’s the president of the Salem Main Street Association, he said the biggest issue he sees with the system is that it’s so hard to determine what the actual issue is, like, who is responsible? Who’s having the biggest burden on the system itself? So he’s hoping it’ll just be easier for everybody, whether that’s on paid on-street parking or something else.
Miller: There are also free garages, right now. Are those being used?
McDonald: Yes. But what Jim Vu told me is he doesn’t believe they’re being used enough. People prefer to park directly in front of the business they’re going to walk into. Those parkades will remain free if this tax goes away and if they implement meters on the streets.
Miller: How far might someone have to walk from one of those garages that are sprinkled around this five or six square block area and say, the store or the restaurant that they want to go to?
McDonald: The president of the Main Street Association compared it to the size of going to grab bagels in the back of a Costco and heading back. It’s a small compact area, where, at most, you’ll have to walk five or six blocks to get to your destination.
Miller: That is a classic American distance, the distance of walking from the inside of a Costco to the bagel place in the back. So it seems like the argument he’s making is, “Hey, people regularly walk this far in other parts of their commercial life.” But so far they have not shown an interest in walking that far downtown. There’s more of a sense of, “I can just park right in front of the store and that’s what I want to do.”
McDonald: Exactly. It comes up a lot in a kind of public planning talk, that the standard is, people want to see two free parking spaces per block. That’s when the perception comes in that there’s plenty of parking downtown, and we don’t have that right now.
Miller: So you mentioned [that] 10 years ago, there was talk about changing the system. My understanding is that a city task force recommended, back then, that the city start charging motorists for parking. Why didn’t that happen?
McDonald: A downtown property owner at the time had created a petition to put the issue on the ballot, and at that point, the city decided not to move forward with it.
Miller: It can be hard for people to pay for something that they are used to getting for free. And for 50 years, drivers have been treated to free parking from businesses that have picked up the tab. Have you heard anything from visitors to the area, would-be visitors, shoppers or diners, about how they would react to this?
McDonald: I haven’t specifically, but I keep track of our social media comments, and a lot of people don’t really feel that downtown is busy enough to warrant this at this point. And they’re also looking at other places where the city is looking to raise taxes in other areas. So for instance, it’s in some budget trouble. Its general fund is needing to be reevaluated so they don’t run out in the next several years. So they’re looking to do a payroll tax. So individuals are feeling more taxes in recent years and this is, to them, part of that larger framework.
Miller: Is this idea in front of the City Council also tied to the hope of encouraging people to use active transportation, to bike or walk or whatever they do, to drive less?
McDonald: I think it’s coming at a time where the City Council is doing a lot of moves that are pointing in that direction. So for instance, they’re overhauling, they’re redoing construction on city streets to make them more pedestrian friendly. Some of them are even changing from one way to two way streets with islands for pedestrian safety in the middle. They’re doing more infrastructure and funding for the public transportation service and a lot of these things are kind of undoing legislation that happened in the 1970s, which is when this downtown parking district was created. So I think it’s, it’s all related in that sense.
Miller: What kinds of responses have you seen to that effort, that broader effort, to encourage more active transportation?
McDonald: It’s hard to say, kind of. People in Salem are not happy with the state of public transportation. There’s been a lot of improvements in recent years. I think they’ve lowered the cost of transportation, they’ve increased service amounts. But when these articles come out, most of the response is, “Well, I still can’t get to work on time. I’m not seeing this the way I want, at the level I want to be seeing it at.” So I think it’s part of a longer term improvement schedule before people will really have faith in this.
Miller: What’s the timeline right now for these changes? These potential changes?
McDonald: So the city told me that they don’t know at this point, they’re gonna have to put together the plan first and present the plan to the City Council and do the public hearings and all that. If I were to guess, I would guess it would happen before the summer when the city is finalizing its budget plan for the next year.
Miller: Abbey, thanks very much.
McDonald: Thank you.
Miller: Abbey McDonald reports on the city of Salem as a Community Reporter for the Salem Reporter, she joined us to talk about a change in the works in downtown Salem, where city officials are considering getting rid of free parking for drivers.
Contact “Think Out Loud®”
If you’d like to comment on any of the topics in this show, or suggest a topic of your own, please get in touch with us on Facebook or Twitter, send an email to thinkoutloud@opb.org, or you can leave a voicemail for us at 503-293-1983. The call-in phone number during the noon hour is 888-665-5865.
