Wall Street in Kingston's Stockade Historic District. Photo: Andre Carrotflower, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Anyone who has circled the Stockade District on a Saturday looking for a spot, or moved a car at midnight for alternate-side rules, now has a formal way to complain about it. The City of Kingston has opened a public survey for its citywide parking study, and it stays open through Friday, Dec. 18.
The questionnaire is anonymous, takes about 10 to 15 minutes and is available in English and Spanish. People who finish it can enter a drawing for a $50 Visa gift card. It’s linked from the project page at engagekingston.com/citywide-parking-study, which also has an interactive map where people can pin specific problem spots.
What the city is asking
The survey covers how people get around Kingston, whether they use the city’s off-street lots, how metered parking affects them, electric vehicle charging, and city rules such as alternate-side parking and snow emergency protocols. It’s aimed at residents, business owners, commuters and visitors, and it focuses on the city’s main commercial areas: Uptown’s Stockade District, Midtown and the Rondout waterfront downtown.
Mayor Steve Noble’s office said the study will “evaluate the City’s parking supply, assess parking demand, and develop parking management strategies that balance the needs of residents, businesses, and visitors while also advancing the City’s multi-modal transportation priorities.”
The city’s announcement went further, saying the study “will result in a comprehensive set of recommendations for best practices to meet current and projected parking and travel demand, enhance mobility and access, and optimize opportunities to realize more growth with less parking.”
That last phrase, growth with less parking, is worth noting for anyone hoping the study ends with a new garage. The stated goal leans toward managing what Kingston already has.
Who’s doing the work
The city hired Stantec, an engineering and design firm that will run the study out of its Boston and Albany offices. Highland Planning of Albany is handling public outreach, and M&P Engineering and Land Surveying is providing local analysis. Summer Smith, the city’s communications director, is the project manager.
According to the project page, the study will inventory publicly available parking, compare Kingston with similar communities and recommend changes. Those could include parking management, connectivity, physical changes to lots and streets, regulatory and zoning changes, signage and public-private partnerships. Stantec started with existing conditions in July and collected parking occupancy data in the field this fall. Final recommendations are expected in late spring 2027.
How it got here
The study has been in the works for a while. In August 2023, Noble and Common Council President Andrea Shaut announced a Parking Task Force to gather input on parking problems and write a request for proposals for a full study. In February 2025, the city won $100,000 from the Mid-Hudson Regional Economic Development Council’s Strategic Planning and Feasibility Studies Program to pay for it.
That’s more than three years from task force to survey, which says something about how long parking has been a sore spot in Kingston. The study’s own focus on the Stockade District, Midtown and the Rondout tracks with where the city’s restaurants, shops and weekend crowds are. The survey is the main chance for people outside the project advisory committee to put their own experience on the record before Stantec drafts recommendations.
If you need help with the survey
People who need assistive technology, other accommodations or help in another language can contact Highland Planning at lauren@highland-planning.com or 585-504-1672 before the survey closes. The project page also lets people sign up for updates, including notice of future public meetings.
The deadline is Dec. 18. After that, the next public look at the study should come when Stantec starts sharing draft findings.
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