Downtown Parking Council Work Session Packet (02/17/2010)

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Permalink Reply by Mary Leighton on February 17, 2010 at 9:27am

I think it was Lazar who made the best point in this whole discussion: It's not the lack of parking or even the cost of parking that is a problem. It's the lack of lively businesses and the presence of empty storefronts. If we could fix those problems and present an engaging array of things to do in the buildings, then spending a few quarters wouldn't be a big deal. I look forward to reading the full report on what has been learned in the studies of free parking, but the most compelling factoid I've heard is that when parking is free, we who work on the street use it. Of course, we are not currently blocking other users much, since what is there to park for, at least on Broadway, besides our work. Maybe I'm an outlier whose expectations have been dimmed by life and very expensive parking in bigger cities, but it sure looks to me (after almost 4 years of daily Broadway experience) that the problem will be solved by development, not cheaper parking.
Mary Leighton

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Permalink Reply by Liz on February 17, 2010 at 10:09am

Mary, I'm 100% with you on this, but it's been demonstrated repeatedly that an awful lot of Eugeneans have the perception that parking downtown is somehow enough of a nuisance to discourage them from coming downtown. The comparison is always with Oakway or VRC: Since there's "plenty of free parking" there, why go downtown?

Of course we know there's plenty of free and almost-free parking downtown, so this attitude is completely ridiculous. The only way to address it is to look at the underlying psychology. For some reason, a lot of people regard parking structures as difficult to use and inconvenient, and plugging meters, even with cheap parking and a high-tech system, seems like a hassle and an imposition to people used to just leaving the car wherever they like. The recent lionization in the RG of that psychotic ******* who was arrested for harassing a parking officer taps into this feeling.

I don't know what to do about this, but no market-based solution is going to work, because that's not what's driving the perception. I personally want to see improved public transit marketed to the middle class, so we can sidestep this stupid parking issue altogether, but that's a whole other battle.

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Permalink Reply by Sherrill Necessary on February 18, 2010 at 10:35am

Maybe some out-of-the-box thinking is needed here. Many of the storefronts have been vacated or replaced with parking lots, leaving primarily restaurants and bars. These places are visited more at night. Why not charge for parking at night? This may also filter out those partyers who blast their stereos in the wee hours of the morning. I was in Kirkland, WA last week and they had such a system in their thriving, quaint downtown.

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Permalink Reply by Liz on February 18, 2010 at 6:47pm

Interesting idea, but it might be hard to justify charging for parking at night and paying for enforcement since there is plenty of street parking available within a couple of blocks from the bars.

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