Commission Gives Its Take On Parking Crunch: Study Revisits Paid Parking, Shuttle, Other Familiar Ideas

CHATHAM – Forget the sharks. In Chatham, most of the hunting involves stealthy motorists circling for a juicy parking space.

Last week, the Cape Cod Commission gave an update on its study of parking and pedestrian safety in downtown Chatham, offering a number of potential solutions to improve safety and parking availability.

Most of the ideas have been floated or even attempted before, like a shuttle service, time limits for parking spaces, paid parking or a remote parking lot for employees. But they’re getting a fresh look, with a renewed push for action.

Select board member Dean Nicastro, who’s been in town for 30 years, said it’s clear that this has been an exceptionally busy summer.

“I have never seen as many people in this town as we’ve had this summer,” he said. “It’s overwhelming to the point of being undesirable.”

The Cape Cod Commission counted parking spaces and measured traffic flow last summer and continued some research this summer as part of “a very robust data collection effort,” Senior Transportation Planner Dave Nolan told the July 30 public meeting, hosted by the town’s parking solutions working group. It found that while most downtown parking lots were consistently busy in the summer, capacity was almost always available in more distant lots like the ones at the elementary school.

“There is enough parking in downtown Chatham,” Nolan said, but many motorists are unaware of the more remote lots or unwilling to use them and make the short walk to the center of town. The paid parking lot at the Eldredge Garage was also underutilized.

“It starts to move out of that downtown core,” Nolan said. “I think at that point a lot of folks have found where they want to park, or may have even given up on where they want to park,” he said. Others argued that people simply don’t want to pay when there might be free parking spaces available. Kristin Muller, who owns commercial property on the east end of Main Street, said people regularly park in private store parking lots and walk to the beach, rather than using the nearby paid lot.

Merchant Addie Sutcliff warned against further parking restrictions or fees. “I think it’s just going to deter. And we have so many competing towns where you don’t have to pay for parking,” she said.

Others said that visitors expect to pay for parking and are accustomed to the various apps that are used to collect parking fees in communities like Provincetown.

“I really do think it’s something that the merchants and everyone in town need to take another look at,” Nicastro said. Will it deter visitors? “I’ve never really bought that argument, because you look at other communities that are destination communities — they’re making a lot of money,” he said. The key is for all town lots to require payment, to be fair to merchants throughout the downtown area.

Select board member Jeffrey Dykens agreed, saying that paid parking would provide revenue for the schools, affordable housing and the town operating budget. “I just think we’re leaving a lot of money on the table, and have for years,” he said.

Nolan said the study included research on other destination towns, including Newport, R.I. and Plymouth. “We actually reached out to the town of Plymouth and got some feedback from them about how they went about getting a shuttle and how it’s been going,” he said. There, a small electric shuttle vehicle operates in partnership with the chamber of commerce and is a popular option for visitors. A shuttle service in Chatham could encourage people to park in more remote lots without fear of a long walk, and it could also be used to help employees reach their cars without having to walk long distances alone at night.

Encouraging better turnover of parking spaces could be accomplished with time-limited spaces, perhaps limiting on-street parking to two or three hours at certain times of the day. Better signage would also help people understand the rules and the available parking locations, Nolan said. In Chatham, “every sign is different,” he said. “Uniformity is important.” Pedestrian safety would also be improved by standardizing crosswalks with the required accessibility features, Nolan added.

Some questioned the wisdom of reserving too many spaces for electric vehicles, but working group member Mike Waters said the town should consider installing charging stations at the elementary school, which would attract visitors in the summer and provide an important service in the offseason.

“We have teachers, we have the firemen, the emergency squad, all of our town employees would have the benefit of an available charging station right at their place of work,” he said. Waters also advocated for paid parking as a means of paying for the necessary improvements like a shuttle, saying Provincetown earns between $2 and $3 million annually from its parking program.

The public has until Aug. 18 to comment on the Cape Cod Commission study, with a draft report expected to be delivered to the town in the late summer or early fall, and a final report due by the end of the year.

“That way, the town may have some time to implement some of these strategies heading into summer 2025, if they’d like,” Nolan said. Comments on the plan can be sent to david.nolan@capecodcommission.org.