I am a bit frustrated that I am writing about on street parking most of the time but frankly, the folks who complain about it are the biggest abusers.
I read three or four articles in the column to the right of this post and most had to do with merchants complaining about not enough parking. That of course was in the first three graphs. Once you get down to the meat of the article, you find that someone has noted that the biggest problems are the merchants own employees.
In one, it turns out that 50 employees of a local company are taking all the spaces on main street and the merchants are demanding that the city pay for a new parking lot that will hold, you guessed it, 50 spaces. Why can’t those folks pony up the money for parking? Maybe if they did, there would only be 25 cars and the rest would take the bus, walk, or carpool. Funny how that works, isn’t it.
Have we reached the point where solutions to problems are everyone elses’. If each of us solved our own problem, like ensuring our employees parked in places that don’t take up our customer’s spaces, all would be right with the world.
JVH
One Response
This problem will continue until City leaders step in and enforce time limits on parking. Is there anything more annoying than sitting in a restaurant at lunch and watching your waiter run outside to feed the meter? Surely this problem is cured by simply installing and enforcing time limits or, raising street rates to match those of the surrounding parking facilities, thus negating the cost benefit of street parking.
A question for bloggers out there: Why don’t the private operators who manage street parking suggest these methods?