A correspondent from San Francisco sent in this nominee —
SACRAMENTO. Headquarters of California’s brain trust.The City of Sacramento has just spent hundreds of
thousands of dollars gathering parking data in response to the perceived parking
problems in the Central City. (or should i say, the perceived problems of a
successful revitalization of the urban core). At this time, none of the major
recommendations of the Central City Master Parking Plan have
been implemented.It’s the typical story. 5 years ago you could
drive your long bed pick up truck downtown and park free on and off
street. Locals have resisted any traditional supply and demand improvement
techniques. Most notably-parking fees and time limitations. Businesses are
slowly realizing they can’t park all day in their loading zones and employees
need to park 2 blocks away and not take up all the prime parking.The private operators have done their fair
share- Installed pay and display. Implemented incremental parking rates,
improved inventory via layouts, and most importantly elimated over 75% of the
monthly parking in strategic surface parking lots. over 300 new transient stalls
have been created without a single city $$ being utilized. Now inventory is
controlled via early birds and pricing. Parking is still economical and
available off street evan at the hightest peak demand periods. $5 for valet
restaurant parking. public parking is approx. $2.50 per hour and $10 daily max.
Now the kicker: The goals and recomendations
fly in the face of even the most liberal Shoupista! ie. business can’t get
operating permits or parking variences without off street parking. developers are gong to
be required to build a minimum # of stalls per unit, city is looking to
implement a bond for expensive and probalby not strategic garages in a very
physically constrained environment, the residential neighborhoods are going to
be off limits or limited parking — it goes on and on…
I think this is an admirable nominee. Its not unusual to find a city that pays for a solution when in fact there really isn’t a problem.
JVH
