Cap City News publishes letters, cartoons and opinions as a public service. The content does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Cap City News or its employees. Letters to the editor can be submitted by emailing editor@oilcity.news.
Dear Cheyenne,
This is a letter presented to the City Council along with a petition with nearly 120 signatures of downtown stakeholders and customers.
As downtown Cheyenne property and business owners who have committed substantial capital investment and our livelihoods to the downtown community, we write this letter to communicate our opposition to the recent paid parking initiatives passed by the City Council. Specifically, the undersigned downtown stakeholders are opposed to the recent paid parking ordinances passed by the Cheyenne City Council in July and November 2024 and request they be repealed.
We strongly believe the process leading to the recent actions was not representative of the collective view of the downtown business community. The current downtown business environment is already quite fragile, and we believe your paid on-street parking policies will cause significant damage to the economic well-being of the downtown community.
We recommend the following, more productive actions be completed, and their results analyzed in conjunction with downtown stakeholders prior to implementing any on street paid parking policies:
- Delineate all on-street parking with new street and curb striping which clearly identifies all available and handicapped parking spaces. Many parking spaces are wasted each hour of the day due to the lack of this very basic parking standard.
- Improve signage and signage placement. Add additional two-hour parking signs and add additional handicapped, no parking and loading zone signs where required to improve communication where authorized parking exists.
- Parking should not be the guessing game it is now. Along with enhanced signage and delineated spaces, re-engage in a community marketing program clearly explaining Cheyenne’s parking policies. Educate and engage businesses to assist with this effort. Many business owners/employees don’t even understand the current policies.
- Improvements to the parking garage that not only actually make the public safe, but also change the perception of an unsafe space must be completed. Feedback from current garage customers, downtown employees and businesses is critical to understanding the actual perception of parking garage safety. We understand some improvements have been made as cited by the city and police department, but because the garage remains significantly underutilized whether real or perceived, potential customers continue to feel it is unsafe.
- Incentivize customers, employees and business owners to participate in garage parking by offering group/discounted rates. The inability to turn parking spaces quickly is predominantly due to customers/employees searching for parking. As such, creating viable options for employee parking is a priority and its solution should be narrow in focus.
- City employees need to set the example by adhering to parking restrictions. This group of downtown employees should utilize garage parking, especially when they work right across the street from the garage.
- Research options to create additional parking on the east side and other areas of downtown.
- Review the recommendations of the 2017 Kimley-Horn parking study and make sure all appropriate recommendations have been implemented. Although paid parking was mentioned in the report as a potential course of action, there were many ignored recommendations in between where we are and paid parking.
- Investigate new approaches to enforcing parking rules, other than the current police vehicles. We believe there are more functional alternatives to the current approach that should be considered.
Being a business owner anywhere is challenging; being a business owner in downtown Cheyenne is especially challenging. Your paid on-street parking ordinances create another reason not to visit downtown.
We are here every day, day in and day out, and do not see parking as the issue it has been made out to be. As the group with the most to lose regarding changes to downtown, we are happy to engage with you, Mr. Mayor and the Council, to discuss the ways in which downtown could benefit from the City’s assistance.
Corey Loghry
Cheyenne
