UPDATED @ 6:04 p.m. Feb. 20: Penn State plans to take special measures for parking on State Patty’s Day weekend, as well. The report below has been updated to note the university’s efforts.
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State Patty’s Day visitors, take notice:
State College borough will be raising its garage-parking prices and upping its street-parking enforcement for the drinking-holiday weekend, set for this week.
People who park in the borough-owned garages — on East Beaver Avenue, South Fraser Street and South Pugh Street — will pay 75 cents hourly for the first three hours, then $1.75 an hour after that. (Seventy-five cents is the normal hourly rate.)
The borough took the same approach for State Patty’s Day last year. Its goal then matches its goal now: to manage the parking demand, encourage parking-stall turnover and recoup some cash to help cover the borough’s State Patty’s-related expenses, parking Manager Charles DeBow said.
He said the borough also — again — will hold open 100 spaces in the Beaver Avenue garage, releasing them for use about midday Saturday. That should create some additional parking capacity for downtown employees and regular customers, DeBow said.
Back in 2010, before the borough took proactive steps to manage the State Patty’s parking demand, borough-owned garages were full from Friday night through Sunday afternoon.
But conditions eased last year, DeBow said, thanks to the borough’s higher prices and Beaver Avenue garage strategy.
The borough also plans to double its usual street-parking enforcement patrols on Saturday, putting two officers on duty. One will focus heavily on residential areas — particularly the Highlands neighborhood — with an eye to cars blocking crosswalks, driveways and fire hydrants, DeBow said.
He said other will be focused on the downtown. The borough took a similar neighborhood approach for State Patty’s Day 2011.
On-street parking violations were rampant last year in the Highlands, DeBow said. He said bolstering enforcement is a quality-of-life effort for residents’ benefit.
‘We don’t want to issue so many tickets,’ he said, ‘(but) we’ll see how it goes.’
On State Patty’s weekend ’11, the borough issued parking tickets worth about $22,000, DeBow estimated. The borough issues tickets worth about $4,000 on a typical weekend.
On the garage side, the borough usually sees about $5,600 in revenue on a normal weekend. On State Patty’s weekend last year, DeBow said, the garages brought in nearly $48,000.
The parking-garage revenue goes directly into the parking department’s fund, where it’s designated only for parking-related uses. But the ticket revenue goes into the borough general fund, which supports public functions from street cleaning to police patrols.
Elsewhere, on the University Park campus, Penn State is taking special parking measures for State Patty’s Day weekend, as well. All on-campus parking facilities will charges a special event rate of $5 per day per vehicle, according to a news release.
Digital signs will help guide drivers to where parking is available, the release notes. Penn State parking officials are ‘concerned that on-campus parking will reach full capacity, especially if many visitors choose to park overnight in metered parking decks, as several visiting the area for State Patty’s Day chose to do’ in the past, the release reads.
State Patty’s Day aside, Penn State noted, University Park plans to host more than 100 weekend events this week, such as sports and cultural gatherings. Those attractions alone are expected to put significant demand on campus parking facilities.
State Patty’s Day, in its sixth year, was started by Penn State students seeking an alternative to St. Patrick’s Day. The year State Patty’s began, St. Patrick’s Day fell during the Penn State spring break.
A number of students, not wanting to miss out on traditional St. Patrick’s celebrations in State College, launched State Patty’s to fill the void.
It since has ballooned into a State College tradition, propelled in large part via social media and decried by community and university leaders.
A number of bars closed or limited their hours for State Patty’s Day 2011, and a community campaign tried to calm the atmosphere. Similar efforts have taken root for State Patty’s Day 2012.
Links to some earlier coverage are posted below.
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