Parking for islanders at the Portland waterfront has become a competitive sport. Available spaces form a crazy quilt of carved-out lots with varying fees, and there is the unforeseen crush of employees working at the Cianbro Corporation’s oil-rig fabrication project. Most long-term lots, billed monthly, are overbooked by at least 20 percent, operating with the same financial strategy behind airline overbooking, a necessary evil designed to cover the cost of no-shows.
“They should build another sheltered parking lot,” argues Jean Gulliver, who summers on Peaks Island and visits friends there year round. “I don’t want my daughter to walk to one of these remote lots because it’s just not safe. And my elderly mother-in-law is too old to walk these distances.”
The current picture dates from a year ago, when Portland’s Ports and Transportation Department reclaimed the land formerly occupied by Bath Iron Works (BIW). The city council elected to award spaces by lottery, charge fees for islanders’ parking and to subdivide this space under the name Portland Ocean Terminal (POT). A memo was sent out to island residents, informing them of the change. “Only two-thirds of the islanders responded to our lottery,” recalls Jeff Monroe, director of Ports and Transportation.
In hindsight, many islanders probably wish they had taken the city up on this initial offer. A year later, the statistics paint a picture worthy of parking rage. On POT Lot #1 (65 spaces) the charge is $10 for 24-hour parking. This lot was intended for people visiting the islands, either for a day or a vacation. However, “Cianbro people [employed on the fabrication project underway at the former BIW site] pretty much fill up this from Monday through Friday,” says Tynnia Staples, director of security for the Department of Ports and Transportation. Staples recommends that people visiting the islands try to park here after 5:30 p.m., after the Cianbro shift changes.
When Cianbro came into the picture last year, it was allocated its own 100 parking spaces, at a fee of $45 per space. Employees also enjoy free satellite parking, with a shuttle bus to carry workers to the waterfront site. That still doesn’t keep them from filling up the daily spots in Lot#1.
In POT Lot #2, islanders enjoy a front lot further down the way, for $75/ month. And in a rear corner, POT Lot#3 offers islanders 65 spaces at $45 a month.
“We oversell these lots by 15-to-20 percent,” explains David Cohan, waterfront property manager for the city. This practice operates on the theory of predictable no-shows, so overbooking makes fiscal sense.
All this parking-fee money goes to insurance fees, lighting bills, snow plowing and landscaping, explains Cohan, adding that he has a hard time measuring true costs, which include city employee labor.
Meanwhile, the privately managed Casco Bay Municipal Garage is the coveted diamond in this rough waterfront scene. Here are 419 prime parking spaces owned jointly by the city and private investors and managed by the Fore River Company. Built in 1987, it is a marvelous place to park, go down to buy a ticket and board a ferry and be perfectly safe and never get wet. Sources estimate a two-year waiting list for a spot here, which now costs $931.20 a year, up front, for the handful who clear the list each year. According to Peter Quesada, vice president of the Fore River Company, this garage is also overbooked as a matter of business. “We look at the patterns of use,” he explains, “and we find that people who only use these spaces in the summer are reluctant to give up their spots for the rest of the year.”
Asked about rumors that Cianbro employees are trying to jump the waiting list to get into this garage, Quesada responds that “The only thing I know about Cianbro is what I read in the newspapers.”
Last, but not least, are two other facilities for the hikers at heart. The old dirt Fore Street Lot has been reclaimed by the city, regraded and restored, and now accommodates 135 cars with fees at $75/month from May 1 through Oct. 31 and $100 for the rest of the season. The city also offers parking for islanders at the Portland Fish Pier, on Commercial Street, half a mile from the ferry, for $75/month or $5/day.