I find it hard to believe — but here we go. As mentioned in an earlier blog, the city of Paso Robles, CA is considering a $13 million 800 space parking structure. They think they are going to be short 800 spaces in a few years. I don’t think so, but that’s another story. Read it all here. The issue now is how to pay for it. And I quote:
The next step is to figure out how to finance a structure. Options include impact or in-lieu parking fees, citywide taxes or surcharges, the city’s general fund, and meters and enforcement. The city will likely have to rely on a combination of methods.
Only in government. Not one suggestion that the project should pay for itself. Of course to do that, it would have to generate about $200 per space per month. Horror of horror, parking would have to cost more in Paso Robles. So we will subsidize parking probably to the tune of a million dollars a year to build a parking structure that probably doesn’t need to be built anyway.
If the city dads in the central coast city would take a close look at their inventory. raise parking fees on the current spaces, starting thinking about shuttle services from outlying lots to the downtown core for employees and long term visitors, my guess is that the parking problem would disappear faster than a nice glass of Pinot that is made in one of the city’s surrounding vineyards.
J
