Wichita’s downtown parking is a math problem city leaders are struggling to solve.
Wichita has over 6,000 parking spots, divided between metered and free spaces, on streets and in parking garages. Each one brings in about $227 a year but costs about $400 in labor and maintenance.
Complicating the equation is some $9 million of parking improvements that city staff says are waiting in the wings, alongside a new downtown development that’s set to bring thousands more people to the area — mostly by car.
In four of the last six years, Wichita’s parking system has cost more than it’s brought in — often hundreds of thousands of dollars more.
“We’re not generating enough revenue to even keep up with the cost of operating and maintaining the system,” Assistant City Manager Troy Anderson said. “We’ve got to do something different.”
Somebody has to pick up the tab for the deficit in the city’s parking fund.
City leaders say that other communities have a solution — bill the cost of parking to people using the spaces.