Downtown parking still a puzzle
Store owners, students and tourists are all wrestling with the limited number of parking spaces in downtown Lexington.
Laura Gentry of Pappagallo on Main Street says that she often has to take residential parking spots because the spaces designated for store employees are taken by W&L students.
W&L Public Safety Chief Mike Young says the city usually requires the university to provide adequate parking with any new buildings.
"Traditionally, the city has not been happy with students taking parking spaces downtown," Young said. A campus parking garage added six years ago increased parking for students by more than 500 spaces.
Young does not think the city is being entirely fair, because city officials "constantly demand that we have parking made available, but their rules don't extend to the downtown property owners who rent to our students but don't provide them any parking."
Sammy Moore, executive director of the Lexington-Rockbridge Chamber of Commerce, is not sure whether there really is a parking problem downtown.
Like Moore, Steve Robbins, the owner of Hamilton-Robbins on Main Street, thinks people want to park right in front of the store they are shopping in.
"You can probably park three blocks away from my store and [still] have a much shorter walk than you would have if you went to a mall," Robbins said.
The construction of the new Rockbridge County Courthouse downtown will include a parking garage. It will have 124 parking spaces available free to the public. Young wishes that the garage would have been build larger so W&L students living downtown would have parking available there. Tom Higgins, the Rockbridge County engineer, says that he does not believe the garage will be full every day.
So what to during the holiday shopping season? Pappagallo's Gentry says that a lot of shoppers "will wait 'til the students leave to go home so that there are more parking places."
Produced by Washington and Lee journalism students.
Lead Supervisor:
Prof. Brian Richardson
Prof. Phylissa Mitchell
Reporting supervisors:
Prof. Doug Cumming
Prof. Pamela Luecke
Technical supervisor: Michael Todd