WORCESTER, Mass. – A new study is looking to bring more clarity to discussions about parking in Worcester and the ripple effect it has on housing and the local economy.

The Worcester Regional Research Bureau sought to provide objective data analysis on the past, present and future of city parking, as well as public parking usage in Worcester.

While most drivers in Worcester have likely felt the struggle of trying to find convenient parking, only to end up late for an appointment, the study notes there are roughly 4,000 spots in Downtown Worcester.

“We have plenty of parking downtown. I recognize that’s not commonly understood by some people,” said WRRB CEO Paul Matthews. “I understand everyone would love to get free parking directly in front of the business they’re patronizing, but the fact remains the city has a number of parking spots downtown.”

Matthews and Senior Research Associate Josh Boucher believe frustrations with downtown parking are the result of people only seeking out on-street spots a short distance from their destination. Parking in a garage is slightly more expensive than on-street parking - for two hours, it’s $5, instead of $3.

Even though it may be more inconvenient to park in a garage, they argue it’s more beneficial for Worcester in the long run.

“We need life downtown. We need customers downtown,” Matthews said. “We need the foot traffic so people will walk by a storefront and say ‘Wow, I never go in there, let me go in.’ So that feeds into an active downtown in a way we did not have 15 years ago or 10 years ago.”

Boucher, meanwhile, said the study also focuses on how existing requirements for developers to include a certain number of parking spaces in their projects could be discouraging new housing, which remains in high demand.

“Parking minimums are the idea that when you build something new or redeveloped into something new, you have to build a certain amount of parking spaces, depending on the development,” Boucher said. “So a dwelling unit in Worcester for example, everywhere except for downtown, where there aren't any parking minimums, it's two parking spaces per unit. A multi-family dwelling,  like many of the ones down here, if they had parking, it would be, you know, a hundred parking spaces.”

Boucher said the average price to build one parking spot in a garage is $30,000, so extending Downtown Worcester’s more relaxed parking requirements to other areas of the city could have big benefits.

“If we want to build more housing and work on economic development, if we want to fulfill the goals of Worcester Now Next, I think one way to do that is to think about how much we're spending on things like parking and allow developers to maybe better determine what the needs are for the spaces that they're going to that they're trying to create.”

For more information on the study, visit the Worcester Regional Research Bureau website.