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by Jack Neely

Knoxville’s favorite boogeyman is downtown parking. Ooh. Some people get cold chills just saying the phrase. West Knoxvillians scare their kids with spooky stories about it. It might all seem good fun—except that some innocent kids grow up believing the stories.

Parking is available downtown—some 20,000 spaces of it, if you think that’ll do—and if you know what you’re doing it’s neither difficult nor expensive, especially compared to most other cites in America.

Sometimes perplexing to newcomers, however, is the puzzlingly wide array of prices for parking, ranging from a high of $10 a day to a low of about $1 a day at the city’s metered spaces—some of which are only about a block away from the most expensive places. Just remember this rule of thumb: the higher the adjacent buildings, the higher the parking rates. The legal and banking center of town, at the intersection of Gay and Main, has the highest rates. The lowest—including some that’s even free—is on the fringes of downtown.

Except for some limited free parking in World’s Fair Park and elsewhere, the least-expensive places to park are at the city-run 10-hour meters; those longer-term meters are always cheaper than the one or two-hour ones. There are hundreds of them on the fringes of downtown, especially along South Central or the eastern half of the Church Avenue Viaduct. You can park there for 15 cents an hour, and there’s an open spot available most of the time.

Elsewhere, the prices in most lots or parking garages range from about $4 to $6 a day, $1 or $2 an hour for shorter periods.

But there are also many opportunities for free parking downtown, especially in the evenings and on weekends, which are livelier for dining, shopping, and entertainment than ever before. Two-hour parking for library patrons is free at the Locust Street Garage on Locust between Union and Clinch. Ask the librarian to validate your ticket. At least five downtown restaurants offer suburban-style free adjacent parking. Parking is free at the State Street Garage for most Tennessee Theatre events. Parallel parking for an hour or less (they’re not very strict about checking) is also free on some central blocks of Gay Street. Parking at Volunteer Landing is free, provided you have some business there, like a meal at Riverside Tavern, Calhoun’s, or the Tennessee Grill. All metered spaces are officially free after 6 p.m. and all day Sunday, as are commercial loading spaces. They’re unofficially free on Saturdays, when they’re rarely checked, and unless the police change their policy after reading this, they rarely check meters on weekdays after 4 p.m. Even if you make a mistake, a basic city parking ticket is only five bucks—that’s less than a standard parking rate in most bigger cities.

Several lots raise their prices for special events, like UT football games; but even on those days, it’s not hard to find spaces downtown that are cheap or free.

Parking on UT campus is mostly reserved for students and faculty, but metered parking is available along Volunteer Boulevard, and several parking garages, like the one at the University Center, off Phil Fulmer Drive, also accept non-UT parking. Prices are comparable to those downtown.

Except for Fort Sanders neighborhood, which has some daytime meters and pay lots, the hospitals, and the airport, parking elsewhere in Knoxville is generally free—subject, of course, to the standards of the individual parking lots’ owners.

Take the Bus

Knoxville, the junction of two of the nation’s major interstates, is known as a car town. Some say a car is required equipment here. And it’s true, if you have a kid on an AYSO soccer team, or if you’re a sales rep for Metro Pulse, you should probably consider purchasing an automobile.

But some people get along without. And in these days when we can’t be sure where our gasoline dollars are going, and what the people there are going to do with them, and when they’re going to stop charging so much for it, all of us can minimize our driving by trying some other options.

Like the bus. Contrary to the assumptions of the non-bus-riding majority, Knoxville does have public transportation system, and it’s a pretty useful one. Knoxville Area Transit, in fact, won a major national award in 2004 for its improvements to service.

KAT runs buses about 18 hours a day, from 6 in the morning until 11:45 at night, generally every half-hour, with some exceptions, especially in the early evening. Look at a schedule, available at www.ci.knoxville.tn.us/kat, and also in brochures available in the main library, in banks, hospitals, and other public places, and aboard KAT buses, before you ride.

If you live anywhere in the city, chances are you’re within walking distance of a KAT stop. However, after 8 p.m., only four main trunk routes, to the south, east, north, and west—via Chapman Highway, Magnolia, Broadway, and Kingston Pike, respectively—run from downtown. The main transfer station, the hub of the whole network, is on Main Street, directly in front of the City County Building. Schedules are posted there, and during the day, there’s a KAT representative on hand to assist.

KAT service is spotty outside of city limits—the bus is partly funded by city, not county taxes—but some suburban places, like Farragut and Halls, have daytime connections to KAT.

A standard bus ride is $1—you pay it as you get on, and they’ll take either bills or change. Seniors and students pay 50 cents, and kids under 5 ride free. Transfers are 20 cents for adults, half-price for students and the elderly. Or you can buy a FLASH pass good for unlimited rides for a month for $30, half price for the elderly and handicapped.

In addition, KAT offers a free shuttle service to UT, and another to the inexpensive parking garages near the Civic Auditorium. They run frequently all day on weekdays until 6 p.m.

For more information, call 637-3000 or visit the KAT website.

Ride a Bike

Thanks to construction of several bike paths over the last several years, Knoxvillians have more access to safe bicycle-riding paths than ever before.

Several of the trails seem to be used chiefly for recreation, but the longest bike path in town is the Third Creek/Volunteer Landing trail, and it’s also practical transportation for some commuters and UT students who use it. A bicyclist can get on the trail at the Bi-Lo in the Bearden area and ride all the way downtown, some six miles away, threading through Tyson Park and UT—crossing only three streets. More bike routes are in the works.

Most KAT buses are equipped with bike racks for those who want to ride the bus to work in the morning and ride a bike home, or vice versa; each bus can carry two bikes at no extra charge.

For more information, see the KAT Routes to Knoxville Greenways website.

December 30, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 53 © 2004 Metro Pulse