Crazy Madtown Parking (Madison, Vilas, Price: apartments, rental, lawyers)

[calloo]

Hey all, I'm moving from out of town to the Villas / West High area (Van Hise Ave) in a few weeks. I've heard street parking is tough in Madison. Maybe that's only in the winter, when you have to keep moving your car from one side to the other, when it snows.

Is there ample street parking in this area?

We're moving with two cars but only have one parking spot with our apartment.

What's the going rate to rent an off-street parking spot in these neighborhoods?

Thanks!

[7G9C4J2]

Yep, parking anywhere in or near the center of Madison is a huge and expensive pain in the kiester.

Start by looking at a map of the city. See how those two huge lakes nearly come together in the middle, right at that isthmus that's only about 8 blocks wide? Well, that little spit of land is the center of Wisconsin's state government. And just to the west of there, where the land is starting to widen out a bit, you've got a university with about 40,000 students and probably 10,000 faculty and staff. Oh, and then there are banks, law firms, restaurants, performance venues and the like scattered all through there, too. And all those politicians, students, professors, bankers, lawyers, restaurant patrons, and concert-goers all want to park their vehicles either on or near that little tiny spit of land. Yeah, Madison parking is interesting, to put it mildly.

The area you describe is farther out from the worst congestion on the isthmus, but you've still got to factor in the impact of West High. A lot of high school kids drive themselves to school these days, and they're looking for on-street parking near the school, too. You can expect pretty intense competition for parking spaces anywhere near West High from September until early June.

If you check around, you may be able to find an off-street spot to rent, but I'm betting that it may be a challenge, and would quite possibly wind up being blocks away from where you live. When I used to work for a downtown landlord who rented parking spaces as well as apartments, the going rate for a parking spot in that area was $75/month. That was nearly five years ago, though, and today it could be quite a bit different.

Good luck to you. I think this is a great place to live, but parking here is no fun, no matter how you parse it.

[RemiJP]

I think this is all a matter of perspective. We moved here from Boston where parking requires resident permits that are only good for your neighborhood on certain streets, often only on one side year round, the norm is to pay at least $10-$20 to park downtown for a few hours, and people get in battles over parking spots, some physical, some with creative placement of lawn furniture. When I first visited Madison, I thought the parking ramp pay station was broken when it said it was only $5 for the evening- I was convinced there was a misplaced decimal! So now I live on the isthmus with a car and I really don't view parking as a problem. Sure, you have to move the car every other day in the winter, but I see that as a good thing as it forces people to shovel! I've never had to park the car on another block. The parking permit program here seems reasonable, but I haven't met anyone yet who uses one! But if you are coming from an area without any parking restrictions, you might find learning the ropes of Madison parking to be a challenge.

[subclavius]

The problem with parking in the Vilas area comes not only from the fact it is a densely populated area of the city, but that most of the turn-of-the-century houses were built before anyone had a car, hence no garages and few driveways. Then add to the fact that a lot of the homes were converted into multi-residential flats, so now you have 4 to 5 people (or more) living in one house, and each of them has a car. Now multiply that by X number of houses on the street, throw in a big hospital, some schools, a bunch of popular businesses which do not have on-street parking in front, and well, there you go....

The best bet would be to contact your landlord about renting a parking spot first. It's a small town and most of those guys know each other, so if your landlord doesn't have anything like that available, he or she will most likely know someone who does. Some of the downtown apartment rental companies that cater to the UW students also rent parking spaces on the side. And talk it up with your neighbors when you get here. One of your neighbors might be an international student or out of stater who doesn't have a car but has an option to rent a parking spot that came with their apartment.

Madison's craiglist also has a section where people advertise parking spots for rent. Prices there seem to be going for $75-$100 a month:

madison parking & storage classifieds - craigslist

On the plus side, now is probably a good time to get a spot because most of the students are gone for the summer. You've also got time to learn the ins & outs of street parking. On the down side, I've heard that rented spots can be a hassle because other people will park in them. And on the days when UW has a home football game, parking in that area is insane.

The city of madison has a monthly parking rate for the big parking garages spread out through the city. If you went that route at least you wouldn't have to worry about the daily winter parking rules or scraping the snow of the windshield in the morning, but parking there might get cramped on occasion because I think it's free parking if a snow emergency is declared. The garage locations, the monthly rates, and all the winter regulations can be found at the city of Madison's website.