A PR Blunder in Raleigh?

Raleigh's "new-and-improved" Fayetteville Street opened with a great deal of fanfare on Saturday. I was among the thousands who crowded the newly renovated and opened street -- formerly a pedestrian mall -- for Saturday night's festivities. There was clearly a great deal of energy and, I dare say, excitement surrounding the street's opening. The City of Raleigh and other key stakeholders invested a great deal of time, energy and resources into making the grand re-opening, which is part of a long-term drive to revitalize Raleigh's city core, a success. The re-opening celebration, dubbed "Raleigh Wide Open", attracted an energetic crowd estimated at more than 25,000.

Today -- a mere two days later -- WRAL.com is reporting that "on the first business day for the reopening of Fayetteville Street to traffic, some drivers are getting an unpleasant surprise -- parking tickets."

In my view, this is a PR blunder for the City of Raleigh. First, the WRAL article reports that "the tickets are being written even though there are not any clear markings of parking spaces on the street." According to the article, a representative with the city's street department said that lines were not painted on Fayetteville Street for aesthetic reasons.

On the surface, Raleigh is making an effort to attract people to downtown Raleigh. That is one of the the foundational principles undergirding the entire downtown renaissance effort, including the renovation of Fayetteville Street. Now, on the first business day after the street's long-awaited reopening, motorists parking on the street -- whose parking areas are not clearly marked -- are greeted with parking tickets.

I am by no means encouraging people to park illegally, but this is not the way to encourage people to come downtown. As Raleigh City Councilor Phillip Isley said in the article, "As people start to use and enjoy the street, there are obviously going to be some issues of where to park. To come out of the gate, right off the bat, and start ticketing people for using the street for the first time in many, many years seems to me a bit heavy-handed."

As someone whose office was formerly located in downtown Raleigh (we moved out several months ago), I can attest to the fact that parking is one of they key reasons -- if not THE key reason -- people avoid downtown Raleigh. My clients who are located in other parts of the city made this clear.

A readers' poll published in the March 30 Triangle Business Journal reinforces this sentiment. In that poll, which was the topic of an April 4 blog entry, forty-six percent (46%) of respondents said parking "absolutely" keeps them from going downtown and is the main reason in their decision to stay away. Another 21% said that parking is a problem, but that it doesn't keep them from going downtown.

There is a widespread perception that downtown Raleigh is a difficult place to navigate and park. This only lends credence to that preconception and serves to undermine the campaign to attract people to our city center.