Downtown events cause parking headaches for drivers

Sunday, there were numerous events happening in downtown El Paso, all in the same spot. With thousands of people gathering in the same place, there was a lot of congestion as drivers tried to find a place to park.

The El Paso Chihuahuas game at Southwest University Park, the El Paso Comic Con at the Convention Center, the Bacon Fest at Union Plaza and The Bridge, an orchestra performance at the Plaza Theater, attracted thousands of people.

ABC-7’s Jamie Warren snapped a photo while waiting in line at a pay station in a public parking lot across from San Jacinto Plaza.

“Downtown parking is pretty hard especially when there are baseball games and other events going on,” Alex Chavez said. “It’s a little stressful.”

In 2013, just months before the ballpark opened, a local consulting firm conducted a study that found there were more than 12,000 parking spaces downtown. However, that counts a wide area as far north as Arizona Avenue and as far south at Paisano. The ballpark contains about 7,500 seats, and with two to three people per car, that works out to a need for roughly 2,500 to about 4,000 spaces per night over the course of the season.

Last month, the City announced it was beginning a new parking study in the downtown area to help project parking needs and find solutions for growing traffic.

City Council voted to go forward with the proposed year-long study of parking spaces downtown by the Wantman Group out of Houston, costing $97,120.00. The study seeks to identify problem areas and solutions, projecting demand over 10 years.

“Now we are able to work with the consultant on modifying, improving and enhancing the policies the city has to manage and oversee parking downtown,” said David Coronado, assistant director of the International Bridges Department.

Coronado said it’s possible the city currently doesn’t have enough parking spots to meet the demand, but this study will let them know.

“The end goal of this is to make sure we have enough parking to meet the demand of peak times and off times every single day of the week,” Coronado said.

Coronado said currently, a lot of the parking lots you see downtown are privately owned, which means the city has no control over how they are run or the rates they charge.

He said in the future, that could also change.

“We’re trying to get away from just, you run your lot we run our parking meters and that’s it,” Coronado said. “There’s no interaction right now.”