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Originally Posted by urbanlife
Well surface lots and parking garages have little in common other than cars...and parking is never going to get "better" in Portland because of our trains. In order for the trains to work, there needs to be a limited number of parking in downtown, thus making it a better option for someone to simply take the train...though I will say they need to expand the parking at the park and rides, now that would increase ridership.
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Well, I think I might disagree with the whole premise of that. I live in NW Portland, pretty close-in, and barely ever drive downtown. Why bother for most trips when I have the 15, 17, 77 and Streetcar within walking distance?
If I have to stop by for work reasons though, I always have to take my car. I work with computers, and want to have a full set of cabling tools, laptop, a wide variety of cables, spare parts, accessories, and sometimes a few computers and/or printers. For example.
That or I want to buy a week's worth of groceries, and I have some friends coming over so I want to get some drinks and snacks. Without buying a shopping cart I can't get that stuff home. I might as well drive.
It's not that I think that we need more parking, I can always find it at a reasonable price. It's that if you build excess parking, you devalue the existing lots. You make it more worthwhile for them to re-develop the land than keep it a parking lot.
Portland's restrictions on parking are simply holding back downtown growth.
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Also another note for you, we have alot going on in this city that is worth discovering. Plus the way Portland is today, it has changed completely from 30 years ago...so basically you are seeing change, it just still has further to go....oh and a side note, most of what is in the Pearl is less than 10 years old, before that the whole area was basically a dead railyard and parking lots, so when you say Portland has too many parking lots (which I agree) think of what it would look like without all the new development north of Burnside.
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Coincidentally, I'm seeing Portland more and more of the San Diego of the Northwest. Seattle has obviously become the Los Angeles (#1 for importance) of the region, leaving PDX as an obvious #2.
I moved to San Diego in 2002, right as the Ballpark District and East Village really got great, and shortly before CA-56 opened. It was amazing what the CA-56 freeway did to make the Miramar and Mira Mesa areas nicer. Less traffic on residential streets, much safer (at least it felt so) to walk or ride a bike, etc. After living in northern San Diego for a bit, I moved to a place near Balboa Park, and started using the buses and Trolley to get around if I didn't need to drive.
It was amazing watching a city really deal with growth. Their were builders fees all over the place to pay for everything (I think $4600 for a single family house), in addition to a half-percent sales tax. I know, taxes don't fly here, but a gas tax or something, as well as incentives to build up (even parking garages) can stimulate the development of a city.
San Diego opened some public parking along their Trolley (LRT) in downtown. It's a lot like the MAX, but it does a loop around downtown instead of the upcoming X we'll have here. Goes up to Mission Valley, over to SDSU, La Mesa, El Cajon, and Santee. Also down through the Naval Base, Chula Vista, National City, San Ysidro, ending right before Tijuana. It's being built up to serve Pacific Beach, Clairemont, and University Town Center (UTC) on it's final extension. For now.
The San Diego region also helped build garages near the ballpark, the convention center, major attractions, etc. That helped to stimulate replacing the surface lots with hotels, bars, restaurants, condos, and parks.
Mass transit ridership just kept increasing too, because the encouraging parking method (with other Center City Development Corp initiatives) made San Diego's downtown into a place to be. If driving was the option, there was parking for a price. I know, parking can encourage driving, but the driving can encourage mass transit usage.