The Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce on Thursday addressed parking concerns at its downtown council.
Council member Cullon Hooks argued that there is ample parking in the city, but it is poorly utilized.
He discussed expanding angled parking beyond the 200-400 block of Broad street as one possible solution.
“Some people want to get the city to look farther south with angled parking,” he said, noting that there has been resistance to the idea despite the fact that the city used angled parking many years ago.
Another solution could be expanding signage to point motorists to parking decks, which are currently under capacity, he said. Mr. Hooks added that while there are parking decks and shuttles around town, not enough drivers make use of them.
“We need to get people who park eight hours a day in the street to use the parking decks,” he said.
Some council members said their needs were being ignored by the city.
“We’re paying the taxes, it’s our street, and our taxes just went up,” said Russ Elliott, an agent for Luken Holdings. “Angled parking makes sense, why don’t we just go ahead and do it?”
Julian Kaufman, owner of Fitness Together, said he had to change locations because of customer confusion about parking.
“We have a perception problem and not a real problem,” he said. “Businesses go out of business because people don’t know where to park.”