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That'll be particularly good to know today, when the city is crowded with football fans here for the University of Mississippi's final home football game of the season, against LSU.
The city's new Parking Commission on Friday reviewed the draft of a report from Timothy Haahs amp& Associates, a Georgia-based engineering firm with a specialty in municipal parking.
The study team's second visit coincided with Ole Miss' home football game with the University of Georgia, one of several times in the year that Oxford traffic would be at its heaviest.
One key finding was that downtown currently has adequate parking, with 1,188 public spaces. The preference for streetside parking on the Square, however, means some off-Square spaces go little used.
Even on a football-weekend Friday, a 132-space lot one block southeast of the Square garnered usage rates of only 16, 12 and 36 during the respective peak periods of lunch, dinner and late-night bar hours.
"One of the biggest surprises was that there was so little gap between the peak times of parking," City Planner Tim Akers said. "There's just not that much time between each group."
The study suggested signage, new striping and enhanced lighting as ways to improve usage of off-Square parking.
"Those are the things that have gone to to the top of our list" Akers said.
Among other recommendations of the Haahs study were paid parking for on-Square spaces and yet-to-be-built lots, an "anti-shuffling" ordinance to prohibit moving from one space to another to avoid tickets, increased enforcement of parking regulations and consideration of hiring a parking management firm.
A parking garage will become crucial in the next several years.
"As it appears that the parking deficit will grow significantly by 2021, we recommend that the new parking infrastructure be implemented now to help build the fund balance for a new garage that should be built by 2015," the Haahs report stated.
errol.castens@journalinc.com