In the ten years he has worked for the Lancaster parking authority, executive director Tom Matthews has never seen this many vehicles downtown. Wednesday marked the first day of the American Quilter’s Society annual show at the Lancaster County Convention Center, expected to bring 15,000-20,000 visitors by its conclusion on Saturday. On Wednesday, when center officials were expecting the show’s lightest turnout, “All of the garages are pretty well filled,” Matthews said.
But, overall, Matthews observed that the parking provisions downtown have “been working really well.” Since many convention attendees opted to shuttle in from parking lots at Liberty Place, Clipper Stadium, and Burle Industrial Park, Matthews said, the event managed to avoid absorbing all available downtown spaces. His office had not received any complaints throughout the day.
In order to preserve spaces for the “monthlies”—those commuters who purchase a month-to-month parking pass—staff were directed to monitor the garages, and keep spots open during the morning hours. As the day progressed, Matthews said, conventioneer parking began to circulate more fluidly, leaving more spaces open at any given time.
According to Matthews, as of Wednesday evening, only 80 spaces remained at the East King garage, only 150 remained at the Prince Street garage, and about 150 remained at the Water Street garage—which, Matthews noted, is positioned relatively “off the beaten path.”
“You could see that the street [spots] were all parked up,” Matthews said, noting that many spaces that would not be filled on a normal weekday were consistently parked-in.
Since 80% of normal garage clientele are commuters from outside of the city, Matthews expects Saturday parking to be much more open. Friday, however, will likely be tighter than Wednesday, with a higher density of conventioneers as well as the usual market-goers.
