COLUMBIA, S.C. — Downtown Columbia is a concrete jungle, according to a recent study from Parking Reform Network, an organization that aims to educate about the impact of parking policy. The study said Columbia's downtown area comprises nearly 40% parking lots.
Like Joni Mitchell's song Big Yellow Taxi said, "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot." Columbia has seen a lot of that happen, with 37% of its downtown covered in parking lots.
"It's not an uncommon condition in a lot of downtowns. It started due to the disinvestment in our urban core, and the suburban areas started to attract residents and the businesses," Krista Hampton with Columbia Planning and Development Services said. "What was left were largely vacant buildings and increased reliance on cars because people were living outside of the city and needed to drive in."
The move to support and build suburbs resulted in parking lots and plenty of them. Residents aren't surprised by the percentage of parking lots in the downtown area.
"We kind of expect that. But for those of us that live downtown, I think being able to bicycle safely would be really nice," Nancy Martinich said.
"I feel like parking is always a struggle to figure out where you're going to park. If parking wasn't more accessible, I'd definitely say I'd come more," Caitlyn Wolf said.
Hampton said parking minimums didn't help with this issue either; with every new build came a new parking lot.
"Like a lot of cities, Columbia had parking minimums, minimum parking requirements for any construction, so if you did build a building, you would also have to build the associated parking," she said.
In addition to eliminating parking minimums in 2022, Hampton said the city is looking at other ways to make the downtown area more welcoming.
"So, now what's happening is our economic development, our mayor, are really working [to] attract the development to our downtown, which you do see as we've had some hotels built on previously surface parking lots, and so it is happening organically," Hampton said.
She said economic development is critical to bringing more foot traffic downtown. The city is eyeing the relaunch of its bike-share system and looking for more people to use The COMET bus system.
