Downtown Parking Madness

Sexy Meter Maids Probably Won’t Solve Our Parking Problems.

Our very own mensch-about-town, Michael Bartolic, if often ahead of the curve when it comes to public policy issues in our fair little burg.  He submitted this piece about downtown parking over a month ago and, failing to recognize its importance, your editor left it languishing in the depths of the Davis Voice inbox.

Perhaps your editor failed to give credence to this piece because he no longer drives a gas-guzzling vehicle and the only parking problems he has stem from being unable to remember his bike lock combination.

Anywho, last week the City Council decided to institute paid parking in the E Street Plaza Parking Lot… Dollar Scoop Night at Baskin Robbins just got mroe expensive if you want a close parking space.  A total of 59 spaces will be part of a paid system that will allow you to park your gas-guzzler for as long as you want to pay.  Get all of the details here (pdf).

The Davis Voice thinks that we should have paid parking everywhere downtown to encourage more bikers and to fund street calming and better biking infrastructure downtown.

After the jump, read Mike’s downtown parking horror story: one of many reasons to completely revamp downtown parking.

My neighbor, who gets to stay anonymous because we don’t want Blue Meanies (aka our friends in the wee-little parking tri-mobiles) descending on his doorstep at midnight to roust him in his pajamas, recently had one of those “only in Davis” experiences which make our right and relevant town joke-fodder for John Stewart.

How exactly did my malfeasant neighbor break the law? Why he drove down to Ace Hardware to by some organic manure, mega-bags of veggie pet food, and various doo-hickies needed to fix a few labor-saving mechanical conveniences and thus anoint himself a Household Hero in the eyes of his significant wife.  Of course he shoulda, coulda, oughta cobbled together a multi-unit bike-train for his errand and thus avoided having kharmic lightening zap his chore parade. But if he had, what would I write about?

Anyway, after arriving home, said neighbor spent the afternoon working happily.  Then, 10 minutes before the closure of Ace, a manifestation of Murphy’s Law descended on him in the form of finding some of the widgets he acquired earlier in the day were – alas! square whilst the orifices they must fit were round. Sigh – twas ever thus?

So again he hopped in his truck and zoomed down to Ace, whence he parked again – argh! in the same lot he’d parked earlier in the day. Receipt clutched firmly in hand, he leapt from his rig, ran inside, and – miracle of miracles – found what he needed! Exchanging the wrong pieces for the Right Stuff he relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief as push-broom wielding store clerks, hell-bent on getting a head start on one more Saturday night quaffing Jagermeister shots & PBR chasers and looking for love in all the wrong places, swept him out the door and into the parking lot.

Crossing the warm asphalt as the arc lights flickered on in the gloaming, my neighbor must have felt at peace with the world and blessed by the Chore Gods, but just when life looked like Easy Street he saw the ticket on his windshield: he had offended in the civic parking arena…

Perhaps our parking regulations downtown are a bit confusing, eh?

How could this be, he asked himself? The whole gig inside Ace had taken only about five minutes.

“Surely, Judge Judy, there’s been a terrible mistake? My wife and I limited our progeny to 1.7 children, our pets are spayed and licensed, we’re maxed on Co-Op shares, my truck is an import sporting a beautifully faded PLAYSOCCER bumper sticker – why is this happening to me!?!”

It seems in its august wisdom our beloved and enlightened City Council approved a mod for Davis’ already draconian parking laws which makes using the same public lot more than once in some arbitrary time-span a Serious Crime against God & Man which Must Be Punished for the Encouragement of Others.

Apparently it wasn’t enough that we already can’t legally park long enough to watch a movie, eat a slow-cooked brunch at Bistro 33, or speed-read the Golden Compass trilogy at Avid Reader. No, we must re-park at least 1 full block from the original spot or pay the Pied Parking Piper of Davis, lest the City of Righteous Relevance follow Vallejo into receivership.

But not my neighbor, he’s had enough. Which is why I must hide his identity in the Cloak of Invisibility: he now (gasp! shock! and awe! ) shops at OSH in the City Which Must Not Be Named to our north. Better weekend store hours. Free parking. No parking tickets.

Are you listening, Downtown  Davis Merchants? Maybe you should bribe (or blackmail) the Council to build a public parking structure on the City-owned acreage behind Design House, with an artsy pedestrian bridge over the railway tracks to the Cinema 5 structure?

But only if, rather than unleashing the parking police on the huddled masses yearning to shop downtown, you desire a kinder, gentler means to get the City some revenue. Failing that, at least replace the R2D2 parking buggies with sexy meter maids …