Snarky parking

Interesting article in The Bulletin this morning about the state of parking in downtown Bend. This is the first piece I've seen that addressed the issues in such detail. It's all kind of mind-boggling; two examples in particular. First, the woman (business owner) who has received 53 citations and nearly $5,000 in fees since January. Say whaaaaat? She can't be in retail, because I can't imagine having that kind of extra cash sitting around to squander. $5K? I can think of a bunch of products I'm dying to bring in to our shops... if I had an extra $5k you bet I'd make really good use of it. Had she bought a garage parking pass, she would have paid $384 over the last eight months, and had an extra $4,616 to spend on merchandise, or advertising, or a website, or heck, a spa day once a week or so. Or a business consultant who would help her make better use of her deep pockets.

And then the guy who moves his Pathfinder four times a day? Dude! That's some serious break time, plus zooming around in the car looking for spaces beyond the 500 foot zone, plus hiking back and forth to wherever you work, from Wall and Greenwood, to Minnesota, back again, and I guess back somewhere else for the fourth time in the same day. It's got to take 20 minutes each time, which means he spends more than an hour every day just dealing with parking. Huh? Does he spend his lunch break driving around and around our little downtown corridor, munching half a sandwich from one hand? I wouldn't call that quality of life time.

Here's the funny part: the parking garage is no more than 2 or 3 blocks away from anything downtown. And those are Bend blocks, not Manhattan blocks. It's dinky! It's not far away. Yes, I think that the $48 monthly fee for parking is kind of high, especially for those who work part-time. And the cheaper street parking areas can be a bit of a hike (still, not bad at all).

I do often have to park my car close to my shop in the a.m., but we have kind of an unusual situation with the two stores and endless stuff to schlep back and forth from store to store. I can't always carry all the boxes of stuff that may have arrived at the other store the day before, so I park, bring it all in, and then move my car as soon as I can. Into the garage. With my parking pass.