Parking Projects

After completing an audit on our public parking programs, the City is pursuing multiple projects to improve the parking experience for residents, businesses, employees, customers, and visitors. 

Downtown Parking Changes

In 2024 and 2025 City staff worked with a parking consultant and Council-appointed limited duration Downtown Parking Task Force of community members to discuss potential changes to how parking is managed downtown. The Task Force’s work was informed by data collected during the 2023 Downtown Parking Study.

To learn more about the findings and recommendations, you can watch the March 2025 open house presentation or view the presentation slides.

Recommendations Developed to Guide Next Steps – April 2025

Based on the recommendations from the parking audit, the work of the Task Force, and public input, staff provided the following recommendations to Council for implementing improvements to downtown parking:

  1. Create a Downtown Parking Management Area (DPMA) with a defined boundary and actively manage it using a variety of strategies guided by prior and ongoing data collection and industry best practices. It is very important to note that the creation of a DPMA is not synonymous with the “elimination of free parking in downtown”. In fact, it is likely that many parking spaces within the DPMA would remain free for the foreseeable future, but some may have time limits, for example.
  2. Simplify time stays for better communication of parking requirements. A common complaint from visitors and new residents is the confusing mix of time stays, often on the same block. There are currently 15-minute, 24-minute, 30-minute, 1-hour, 2-hour, 3-hour and 10-hour time stays downtown, some free and some paid. Simplifying times would provide a more predictable parking experience downtown, encourage return visits, and reduce the chance of an unanticipated citation.
  3. Improve wayfinding and parking signage with parking branding to better communicate parking requirements. Parking signs would be revised to be more visible and easier to understand.
  4. Offer permits for DPMA City-owned parking lots to employees, employers, residents, and frequent visitors. This would provide cost savings to those frequently downtown. It would also take pressure off the on-street parking supply, which should be prioritized for customers of businesses downtown.
  5. Relocate paid and free parking throughout the DPMA, supported by utilization data and parking management guiding principles such as the 85% occupancy “standard”. This would result in the elimination of the Free Customer Parking Area, though some spaces within that area might remain free. Again, many of those who responded to the online questionnaire appear to believe this to mean “no free parking downtown”. This is not the case, and it is not proposed.
  6. Consider facilitating the creation of a future shared parking program for downtown employees, employers, and residents to use underutilized private parking lots.

You can read the April 21, 2025 staff report that expands on the process and development of these recommendations.

Next Steps:

Staff will present a more detailed Downtown parking plan proposal for Council at a future date.

Moving forward, staff is developing a detailed plan for proposed distribution of paid, free time-limited, and free unrestricted parking within the proposed Downtown Parking Management Area. More public outreach will be conducted when this plan is prepared, with additional focus on downtown businesses, their employees, and residents.

Staff will continue to check in with Council and plans to bring ordinances and resolutions to Council that would both modernize the parking portions of the Corvallis Municipal Code and facilitate changes to the parking system.

Parking Technology Upgrades

Parking Services is also upgrading our technology to provide an improved experience such as new options for mobile payment and digital permits. Read more about this work here.

September 2025 Update

What: Parking Services is currently working with Passport Parking to offer a mobile pay option at existing paid parking spaces where noted below. In these areas, parkers will have the option to pay coins in the parking meters or pay with a credit or debit card through a user-friendly website or mobile pay app. Decals on the coin meters will display a web link to visit and zone number to use.

Where: Existing paid parking spaces along Monroe Avenue and intersecting side streets and on 15th Street near the OSU campus. A future phase of the project will extend the mobile pay option to downtown paid parking areas.

When: We anticipate a 2026 start date.

Stay tuned for more parking technology project news!

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