How downtown Lafayette parking is managed, and where employees park

Parking in downtown Lafayette is managed on two tracks, and the Lafayette Chamber of Commerce keeps both of them on its site: a city study meant to rebalance the supply, and a separate program that steers downtown employees out of the spaces customers want.

The city side is the Downtown Parking Management Study, which updates and supplements Lafayette's 2016 Parking Management Strategy. The city describes the goal as an efficient balance between parking supply and demand, on and off street, public and private, for a downtown that is expected to add housing.

Two pressures sit behind it. One is that new housing downtown brings its own parking demand. The other is the possibility that commuter parking at the BART station lots shrinks in the future, which would push cars into the streets and lots nearby. The study is also meant to serve the stated community interest in safer walking and cycling downtown and better connections to the rest of the city.

The method is counting. The project team runs parking supply counts and occupancy surveys to establish what exists and how full it gets, then pairs that with projections of future public parking demand. The recommendations that come out of it are supposed to manage demand, cut vehicle miles traveled and lower greenhouse gas emissions. The final deliverable is a set of recommended parking management strategies for downtown.

The timeline the city published with the study ran from data collection in October 2024 through stakeholder workshops, a public workshop and online survey, public hearings before the Transportation and Circulation Commission, the Planning Commission and the City Council in spring 2025, and a final parking study report in summer 2025. The chamber's page does not say whether that report has been finished or adopted, which is the first thing to ask about.

Questions on the study go to Patrick Golier, the city's transportation program manager, at 925-299-3229 or PGolier@ci.lafayette.ca.us.

The employee side is simpler and immediate. ParkSmart runs an employee parking program that downtown businesses can point staff to: a map showing where employees are meant to park, carpool discounts, and the ParkSmart-MobilePay app for payment. ParkSmart says the program started in Walnut Creek in 2016 and has since expanded to other cities where it operates. Neither the chamber's notice nor ParkSmart's own page lists which Lafayette lots are included or what employees pay, so a downtown employer signing staff up should ask before assuming.