Newport parking issues highlight city’s growing pains

As summer blooms, Newport’s bayfront is a jumble of tourists, fish packers and shops. It all makes for a great atmosphere, according to fisherman Bob Kemp.

“It’s a small version of San Francisco bay wharf!”

If so, it’s a much smaller version. But the two areas do have similar problems.

“Bayfront parking in Newport has come to a critical point,” Kemp said.

As a fisherman, Kemp has a dedicated loading zone where he can load up his boat when he’s heading out on a two-week albacore trip. But tourists and locals often ignore the signs.

“Yeah, people take advantage of it,” Kemp said. “It becomes someone’s personal parking spot.”

A survey by the city of Newport found that 85% of parking spaces are often taken. And 85% full is apparently the point at which drivers get feisty, fighting over spots or driving in circles and cursing.

Newport Mayor Jan Kaplan said something had to be done to alleviate the issue.

“As a local resident, it was rare for me to want to go down to the bayfront during the summers,” Kaplan said.

So last spring, the city put in 10 parking meters, complete with QR codes and a mobile payment system. They also created a couple of special parking programs for fishing companies and retail businesses.

Newport Development Director Derrick Tokos said the meters, at a rate of $1 an hour, plus permits and parking tickets, have generated $420,000 this first year.

“This is all about driving those funds back into there to improve the parking experience for people down there,” Tokos said.

The money is being spent on things like refurbishing old parking lots, fixing potholes, enforcement and paying for the parking meters.

But locals have not been happy. Initially, they struggled to get the technology to work. And Kaplan noted it’s a rare soul who’s going to cheer the installation of parking meters.

“We’ve gotten very few letters saying, ‘Thank you very much for putting in a parking meter.’ That’s just not how we as human beings are.”

But Kaplan has remained upbeat, saying tourists are now contributing to parking costs and the volume of complaints is dropping.

“Complaints do come in,” he said. “I got one the other day from some guy in Corvallis who said, ‘Well, I’m not coming down to Newport so much anymore. I saw you had parking meters.’ I said, ‘I was in Corvallis two weeks ago. You’ve got parking meters all over downtown!’”

Still, many bayfront business owners are not happy.

The owner of The Galley Kitchen Shop, Michelle Mease, says in the year since the parking meters arrived, her sales have dropped 10%.

“People are deterred by it. It’s not inviting, it’s confusing,” Mease said. “A lot of people will choose to go to other touristy areas on the coast.”

Ashley Barger, the manager of nearby Wind Rift Gallery, said she’s also seen a drop in sales.

“It’s been confusing for a lot of people, especially the older folks who come in, and they’re angry and they want to know why we installed it, even though we as a business did not choose this,” Barger said.

“They want us to explain every aspect of it and generally I get a sense of, ‘Well we can go to a different coastal town where we don’t have to pay for parking.’”

But while few people like the new bayfront parking meters, the city is moving to install more new meters. This time at Nye Beach.

It’s Newport’s cultural district, home to the Oregon Coast Council for the Arts and the Newport Performing Arts Center. But just like the bayfront, Nye Beach is located right up against a natural barrier, the beach, so parking is limited.

The plan was to install the meters this June. But after a heated public debate, Mayor Kaplan has put the brakes on.

“There were enough people concerned and things that still needed some work, that we delayed a year,” he said. “Hopefully that will at least allow us to say, ‘Look, we gave you a year.’”

But the delay doesn’t mean Kaplan is backing away from meter parking.

“I think we’ll come up with the best solution,” Kaplan said. “And the best solution, when you’re solving city problems, is that everyone is mad at you — not just one group.”

Meanwhile, money keeps coming in from the new bayfront meters.

Along with covering all the usual expenses, there’s even talk of one day buying a tourist trolley, so people can leave their cars at their hotels and ride the trolley right to the bayfront.