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Saturday, May 25, 2013
POLL: Parking to panhandlers – What's killing downtown?
by Melissa Corker, published on July 17, 2012 at 8:26 AM
Storyline: Politics
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Here’s the scenario: It’s lunchtime and you live and work downtown. You’ve been craving Indian food from that little place 12 blocks away from the office – too far to walk, but you don’t want to drive because street parking is expensive and there’s never enough of it. What do you do?
It’s a common frustration for city-dwellers and, as Ed Goldman writes in the Sacramento Business Journal, some people say it’s killing downtown.
“Have you ever tried to drive to lunch around here?” downtown resident Emily Gerber asks Goldman in the article. “You pull up to a restaurant and there’s only one-hour parking, which means you either have to interrupt your lunch to go out and re-park your car or get a ticket that’s, like, $50. This is what’s killing downtown.”
Parking issues are huge with city neighborhoods – note the recent clamor over angled back-in parking in Alkali Flat and a proposed pilot program for Second Saturday parking. And, as anyone who lives or visits downtown knows all too well, it’s tiresome to do the “parking space shuffle” to avoid huge tickets.
Is the answer free parking for all? Doubtful. The city may not be ready to turn off parking meters to calm the quell: parking revenue accounts for $9 million of the city’s general fund and, in this economy, the city needs to hold on to every source of revenue that it can.
The city has taken steps to improve the situation. Many merchants participate in a parking validation program, and on weekends and weeknights, visitors can park for $2 at the public parking garage at 17th Street between Capitol Avenue and L Street, though that's little help for residents during the workday.
Sure parking is a pain, but is that what’s killing downtown? The city’s urban core has other issues that some might say are equally problematic – not the least of which are panhandlers.
The downtown seems at times to be overrun with an army of aggressive panhandlers (and we’re not talking about downtown James Brown), who can be bold enough to interrupt phone conversations and tap on car windows, making people second-guess their decision to shop in the central city. From Broadway to K Street, business owners have said panhandlers are their number one customer complaint.
Some cities have taken steps to ban panhandling in downtown areas, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Would that work in Sacramento?
What problems do you think need to be addressed about downtown?
Tell us what you think about this topic in today’s poll and give us your suggestions in the conversation below.
Results from yesterday’s poll:
In yesterday’s poll, we asked readers: What should be done to improve rafting on the American River?
58 percent said the county should enact a full alcohol ban on the river
9 percent said we should explore ways to regulate large rafting groups
17.8 percent said to continue as is – it's not a huge problem
14.8 percent said that, after the latest brawl, law enforcement should step up and more strictly enforce the existing rules
Melissa Corker is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow her on Facebook and on Twitter @MelissaCorker.
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P.S. silly survey
Together, both of these would make the downtown area much more inviting.
Today, everything has changed. You may have to walk 12 blocks to get to your favorite Indian restaurant, but there is also a pretty good one likely less than 5 blocks from you, as well as a high quality restaurant in almost any other area you could think of. There is even an increased level of housing downtown, though this is in its infancy.
I have lived downtown for the past 13 years and I love it. I ride my bike to work. I eat like a king. I roam around downtown/midtown on weekends and still discover new things.
Can we improve, yes! are we dying.. far from it!
Along with more housing in Downtown.. which CADA is doing an amazing job promoting, I would love to see more public transit downtown. When I first moved here it was only 50 Cents if you wanted to ride a bus inside the downtown core. This is the only step backwards I have seen over the 13 years I have been here.
I also totally agree with Mark. There should be some sort of tax on empty buildings downtown. If you can't do something with the building, sell it to someone who can. Sitting on prime property does nothing for anyone.
Not everything is zero-sum
Parking is becoming a huge problem. Any visit to a downtown/midtown establishment now involves circling endlessly looking for a 2 hour or more meter , which seem to be as rare as hen's teeth. Retailers must be getting destroyed by this stupid overreaching revenue grab.
As an example, My partner goes to yoga 5-7 times a week. Most of the meters near the studio are one hour meters, but the (Zuda) yoga classes last 75 minutes on average. anyone see the disconnect?
In addition, UP have just made a land grab and are now charging a $5 daily rate for their glass and nail infested trackside on 20/P. It's all gotten out of control. The city is starving the Goose that lays the golden eggs.
Stop giving them money. They will go away. I think we owe our "homeless problem" to the loafs and fishes corporation. Seems to a beacon for all northern Cali degenerates. That joke just keeps on giving.
(Although the idea of a downtown market is a good one--hopefully the old Greyhound depot at 7th and L will be converted to that purpose, or other property that is currently vacant like the ground floor of the Renaissance Tower.)
Trying to navigate a walkable, urban downtown like ours as though it were a suburb, with large parking lots everywhere, will of course end with frustration--the same frustration that someone trying to get around on foot or a bicycle experiences in less walkable and more automobile-oriented neighborhoods.
So, yes, charging people $5-9 a day for parking is the compromise. Or they could come back after 6 PM and park on the street without charge, or if they weren't comfortable parking on the street, take advantage of evening parking rates which are closer to $2-5.
And if that family of five all have bike lights and reflective gear, and aren't cruising J Street at 2 AM, why wouldn't it be safe for them to ride bikes downtown in the evening?
Suggesting that everyone ride a bike as alternative to driving is just not very realistic. Better public transport would be one solution. Unfortunately, I have almost no faith in RT to provide that. Besides like it or a large percentage of the population drive cars and you cannot ruin the local economy by acting as if that were not the case. Change can happen but it's going to take a lot more time and infill. In the meanwhile we need to address the whole parking issue with rational, realistic minds.
Building garages doesn't solve the problem either--in fact, it can make things worse, because the priority for infill lots becomes parking lots or parking structures, instead of infill housing and commercial buildings that would encourage people to live downtown. Building more parking capacity doesn't help the problem--in the end, it could make things worse!
Providing more parking spaces, regardless of who pays for it, does not necessarily make parking downtown easier--in fact, the more parking you provide, the more you are actively encouraging people to drive downtown--instead of taking other transit modes, or living downtown (since someone who lives downtown doesn't need to drive to work or to go to lunch.) This hurts downtown far more than expensive street parking, because people who actually live downtown are far more important to a central city's economy, on a per capita basis, than people visiting from outside the downtown (they're important, just not as important as having more downtown residents.)
The city of Sacramento's proposed new zoning/parking policy will actually do the reverse of your suggestion--new projects in the downtown core will require NO parking, and those in traditional neighborhoods like Alkali Flat, Southside, Midtown, East Sacramento, Land Park etcetera will require dramatically less parking than under current zoning codes--and for lots smaller than 6400 square feet, no parking requirement at all for commercial uses.
I'd like to see the traffic circle across the capital be turned into a public plaza -free of cars- someday. For that to happen you are probably going to have to build a garage nearby (say on lot across from State Archives Building/Cal Museum). I'd also like to see on-street parking on the Capitol Mall between 3rd and 7th streets.
I understand and share your passion for good public transportation and a dense urban core. I just think it's unreasonable to expect most commuters to move downtown or take RT. Even cities with great public transportation systems and much higher close-in densities still wrangle over parking issues. And as our core becomes more dense that issue will not go away.
And yes, even cities with great public transportation systems and higher densities wrangle about parking. That's kind of my point too--expensive, hard-to-find parking in the downtown core isn't a problem that kills downtowns, in fact it is a good indicator of a downtown that is doing well, because people obviously want to be there.
I imagine that any new projects that do get built will have some sort of parking, as tenants expect it to be there and banks are uncomfortable financing building projects that don't have parking. But the city won't require a specific parking minimum the way they currently do--so future projects are likely to have fewer parking spaces than they would currently need, including state offices.
In the short to medium term future, I expect more residential projects like those currently underway or in the near future--like the ones on 16th and O currently under construction, or the R Street lofts at 11th. We're going to see a lot more central city housing, and most likely a lot more people like the young woman interviewed in this article, who actively want to live close to their workplace. They will not need a parking space in a downtown lot--although they might want one at their residence. (Or they might not!)
Impatient, angry drivers.should r
Take a CarVaction,ge t to know your neighbors and the tree canopy we have...Slow down and appreciate fowntow