A person attending the Kansas City Symphony’s Jurassic Park film and live orchestra concert this past weekend at the Kauffman Center would have had to pay $30 to park their car at a metered spot nearby.
A new policy approved by city council earlier this summer established new, more expensive event parking prices downtown and in the River Market. It increases the standard parking rates in certain on-street parking zones if an event takes place downtown.
The city currently charges a flat rate between $30 and $40 if a driver parks in an event parking zone. New street signs read “This area is subject to event-based pricing” to notify drivers that they will pay more to park during a qualifying event.
The city has majorly overhauled its parking system in recent years. People now must pay to park in city-owned, metered spaces in busy areas like the River Market and downtown, and parking tickets no longer land people in municipal court. The city’s parking control division oversees 1,550 parking meters, 10 garages and 19 surface parking lots.
But people who work in and visit downtown say the implementation of event pricing left them confused and frustrated.
Steve Tulipana, the co-owner of recordBar, said his staff only found out after they got charged. Since the live music venue is near the T-Mobile Center, many of the metered spots are subject to event parking rates.
“That's just an absurd amount of money for anybody,” Tulipana said of the $30 rate. “What will happen is employees will just stop. They'll quit. They'll go work somewhere else and the businesses will falter as well.”
Tulipana said the city did not tell recordBar about the parking changes.
“The frustration is the communication, and then I don't have the information to tell my staff,” Tulipana said. “It's just bad policy.”
What triggers event pricing?
KCUR obtained a list via a records request of events from March to August that showed concerts, conferences, musicals and games that triggered the new event parking prices. It suggests the city quietly rolled out surge pricing for certain events before the policy received city council approval in late June.
In the River Market during KC Current home games at CPKC Stadium from March to May, parking cost $1/hour for the first two hours and then increased to a $30 flat rate. Metered parking near the Lionel Richie concert on June 6 at the T-Mobile Center ran $1 for the first hour, then a flat $30 after.
The number of events triggering higher parking prices increased after the greenlight from city council. Hot Country Nights in Power and Light, Moulin Rouge! The Musical at the Municipal Auditorium, concerts at the T-Mobile Center, and the annual Chiefs luncheon at the Loews Kansas City Hotel all drove up parking costs.
Blocks of street parking now subject to event pricing are located near the Kauffman Center, Convention Center, T-Mobile Center, Power and Light, the River Market and a portion of the Crossroads.
Michaela Gris works downtown and said it’s annoying to be subjected to the higher event parking prices even when she’s not attending an event.
“When I'm just trying to have a night not like that, just going to a movie, then that's when it does get hard,” she said. “I do dread coming down here because of that.”
Confusion over event pricing
During a council committee meeting in June, 6th District Council member Johnathan Duncan asked city staff how he would know when event parking was in effect.
Parking program manager Matthew Muckenthaler said people can look at the meters and the Park KC app, which allows people to pay for parking on their phones. He said new signage will tell drivers if an area is subject to event pricing.
“We are looking at different ways that we can easily and quickly and cheaply provide additional notices in the areas that an event is in progress,” Muckenthaler said. “But, typically, what cities do is they allow the infrastructure to do the work for the customer.”
Duncan asked if there was another way to notify people of event pricing before they park. Council member Eric Bunch, who represents the 4th District, suggested the Park KC app could send a push notification alerting users to event pricing if they are downtown.
“When it comes to enforcement of this, we would take the same approach that we did when we decriminalized the parking system,” Muckenthaler said. “We’d issue a lot of warnings to educate the public that there is event parking on the streets now, as well.”
But aside from new street signage, the city has not widely communicated the change. There is no public list of events on the city website that tells people when to expect event parking prices.
KCUR asked the city to send a list of events that will trigger higher parking rates through the end of the year, but did not receive an answer.
Emily Singletary works downtown and often parks on the street. She didn’t know about the event parking rates until a KCUR reporter told her.
“That's absolutely ridiculous,” she said. “I can understand having some paid parking, because that's pretty standard for most big cities, and we are a growing city. I totally understand change needs to happen, but event parking? Absolutely not.”
What KC drivers should know
The standard rate to park in most metered spots downtown is $1/hour, or $0.25 cents every 15 minutes. Some zones implement progressive parking rates, meaning it gets more expensive the longer a car is parked in the same spot. The maximum time to park varies. Some areas allow up to three hours of parking, while others are limited to one hour.
Some zones charge for parking seven days a week, while others only charge from Monday to Friday.
The city’s Park KC smartphone app is the best way to know how much you will have to pay to park, how long you can park somewhere and if you will have to pay event parking rates.
