I have ripped in to the city of San Diego about their North Park Garage and its lack of parkers but don’t think that I don’t believe that parking garages are necessary. If you go to Santa Monica and visit the Third Street Promenade you will understand the necessity of having available parking. By the way, the city does a good job of letting you know how many garages have space available. Check it out on their web site here:. I’m not going to comment on the accuracy of the numbers, since I haven’t gone down and actually counted em, but I will check in the early AM to see if the numbers revert to nearly empty. In the mean time, lets give them the benefit of the doubt.
I went down to their absolutly beautiful
civic center garage to take a few pictures for a "green’ article we are doing in PT June. The place is fabulous. Take a look:
They had a grand opening a month ago with all the city dads and moms there, bursting with pride at their new baby.
The place is beautiful, full of art.Those things on the roof are photo electric generating grids that will product 181KW of power. But there’s this nagging little problem. Its been open a month:
Whoops! — All the articles written about the garage in the local press have said what a God send it is in the extremely busy civic center area. Its less than a block from the court, city hall, police fire and the civic auditorium. There’s a hotel across the street, and its kitty corner from the entrance from the Third Street Promenade.
When I parked there at 10 AM, there were 30 cars in the 882 space garage. Oh, and the sign outside is below:
Maybe that’s why I’m a little unsure of the counts on their web site. If people find the numbers this far off, the will stop believing the web and the whole thing is of little value.
I’m sure that after the word get out people will use the garage. They might try advertising a lower rate there than on the surface lot about 100 feet away that was full to overflowing. Just an idea.
All that being said (I know its easier to edit than to create and frankly the city did a great job of creating. Now all they have to do is get people to park in it.
JVH
