Parking and pigs flying

Our little downtown parking scuffles are nothing new: every small, historic downtown corridor has the same issues with employee parking vs. customer parking. The maximum time allowed is always on the short side, simply to prevent owners and employees from taking up all the parking meant for customers. The guy in my last post (from the 8/30 article in The Bulletin about downtown parking) who spends so much time moving and reparking his car every two hours is a perfect example of staff parking abuse. Instead of spending $20-$48 on a parking pass, he prefers to spend 15% of his work day driving around looking for a new parking space meant for customers. On the other side of the coin, I understand completely how customers feel when they get a parking ticket. As a friend said recently, why should I be punished for parking a little too long when I just spent $200 downtown, shopping and having lunch? As a business owner, I do not want my customers to feel that way. If you're having fun downtown, you shouldn't have to watch the clock.

So, as I've said ad nauseum, there's always the garage with free parking for three hours, or $5 for all day. That works for now, but we need to make some changes, too. I totally agree with the idea of slapping on bigger fines for frequent offenders. That may be the only cure for them. How about also selling reduced fee parking passes for the top floor of the garage, where no one ever parks anyway? Cut the price in half or so for those willing to drive a bit more.

Or this, my favorite little idea: Diamond Parking could sell rolls of single day garage passes for parking. Businesses could buy them for say, $2 per ticket (on a roll of 50 or so). If you had one of these tickets, you then park in the garage and put your ticket in one of the little envelope kiosks with your license number, just like you do now with the $5 cash all-day parking option. It would be up to each business to deal with them however they wish. If you have part-time or independent contractor employees, you could either give the tickets away or charge for them, however you see fit. Or, you could give them to good customers for their next trip downtown.

How about this idea? Not going to happen, even when pigs do learn to fly. We turn one of those ghost town motels or empty lots surrounding the downtown area and turn it into a parking lot (I'm thinking specifically of the east end of Wall Street, where the old Bulletin lot is). We close off Wall Street to vehicles and make it a lovely pedestrian street (deliveries can be made from Brooks Alley), and then (ha ha, this is the never-ever-gonna-happen part), we run a little trolley line from the new parking lot right down Wall Street (and maybe further) and back again. You put in sweet little covered waiting areas (with trees and big pots of flowers) and transport shoppers and employees back and forth. For free.