Back to the homepage

August 31, 2010

The Trimming Of Lot Nine

IMGP7633

IMGP8317

Ah Menlo Park. Downtown parking is usually plentiful but is time-limited by law to just two hours. Heavens forbid you want to eat dinner andget dessert. People complain about having to re-park their cars to spend money (and hence gain the city sales tax income). Or, people just don’t go to downtown because the whole thing shuts down at 4:30PM Saturdays. Half the stores aren’t open on Sunday, and the stores are poorly positioned to take advantage of half of the community demographics (imagine a downtown of upscale boutiques, Persian rug stores, coffee/bagel-houses, and expensive dining).

So, what is the solution? Step 1: spend more than $50,000 to reduce the parking time in many spots to 1 hour so that no one in their right mind will ever visit your stupid downtown and spend money in your city ever again.

http://www.almanacnews.com/news/show_story.php?id=7244

I’ll discuss the other steps in the coming days.

4 Notes »

Category: Uncategorized

4 Responses to “The Trimming Of Lot Nine”

  1. laura says:
    August 31, 2010 at 6:32 am

    did you read the staff report? they’re reducing time limits in the core but extending them (and making 2 hours FREE) in somewhat outer areas of downtown. standard best practices in traffic planning!
    -urban planner

  2. John V says:
    August 31, 2010 at 9:40 am

    Or they could stop rationing a scarce resource through a queue/quota system, and just put a price on the thing, like we’ve decided is the best option for other scarce resources. 50 cents an hour, maybe a dollar an hour on Santa Cruz ave, make it super easy to pay, you can stay as long or as little as you want, problem solved, money raised. Google “high cost of free parking”.

  3. Michael C. Chen says:
    August 31, 2010 at 10:48 am

    Hi Laura. Glad to see you still read ze blog ;)

    Yes, I read the staff report. The majority of the lots are well below capacity. Only two lots reach near max capacity, and only during peak business hours (somehow Sunday was not surveyed, despite the Farmer’s market taking up an entire 1/2 of a lot). They’re reducing time limits from “unlimited” to “2 hours,” from “2 hours” to “1 hour,” and increasing limits from “1 hour” to “2 hours.”

    I think the part that bothers me is that the “survey” consists of a ‘statistically significant’ (whatever that means in this case) response of only 21% of businesses and downtown property owners. The solution they’ve come up with is biased towards adapting the front lots facing the downtown Santa Cruz (which are sparse), while the lots behind the businesses are underutilized except during peak hours, when their poor design makes them deathtraps (Christina and I were almost obliterated by someone exiting the parking lot going the wrong way). Outside the core downtown, within 2 blocks at most, is nearly unlimited street parking if you’re a resident. If not, I hope you like re-parking your car.

    Perhaps this is standard practice though. Laura, perhaps you’d be willing to lend an expert eye to examine Menlo Park’s long-term visioning plan, and see what all the local urban planning hubub is about: http://www.menlopark.org/projects/comdev_ecrdowntown.htm

    Not to spoil tomorrow’s post, but one of my problems with this parking space work is that within a year or two the entire parking situation might be torn apart anyway (addition of an above/below-ground parking structure, street re-zoning, resurfacing existing lots, etc.). Is parking a deal-breaker in these small downtown areas? To be continued…

  4. Justin B. Evans says:
    August 31, 2010 at 8:55 pm

    GET A LOCAL BLOG COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD, YOU THREE

Leave a Reply

What's a Third Antarctic Journey?

The Third Antarctic Journals is Michael C. Chen's blog on science, religion, and other reflections of his life that are designed to bore even his closest family and friends, one day at a time.


RSS Feed

Recent Posts

Monthly Logs

Tags

Search Archives