The town of Carrboro maintains roughly 600 parking spaces in the downtown area. But how those spaces are being used is the subject of concern.

Since January, the town has been conducting a parking survey that seeks to understand the town’s parking patterns and areas of need. Specific polls were conducted in January and then again in April. A meeting on June 16 marked the mid-point of the study where the team compiled the data.

Trish McGuire is the town’s planning director and presented the survey’s results to the Board of Aldermen on Tuesday night.

“This is the representation of the input on the survey, so good response since we’ve had it out there. We’re pretty pleased with the number of respondents,” McGuire said.

Nearly 1500 people in and around Orange County responded to the survey. McGuire said that more people responded in April and that the lots saw an increase in activity during the spring months. They tracked 2600 different license plates to discover the peak hours of parking.

“For overall parking in the downtown, the 11 o’clock to one o’clock time frame remains the peak. The peak for the public lots is actually the six o’clock to nine o’clock time frame.”

One of the biggest problems the survey found was the need to better regulate reserved parking spaces.

“Those reserved parking spaces and the signage associated with parking in general sends cues that are unclear to people who are allowed to park or whatever.”

The survey results also call attention to the use of public lots. While the majority of cars stayed in the lot for only about two hours, a significant portion stayed for more than seven. McGuire says this makes short trips into town more difficult.

“They’re taking away some of those spaces from short-term visitors. So that’s one of the issues.”

To fix these parking issues, the survey committee is looking into improved signage and parking passes.

“There was some interest in shared parking agreements and not tremendous support for building alternative parking,” McGuire said.

The committee’s next steps will be addressed during the July meeting.