Portland Parking

[davehogan]

Originally Posted by urbanlife

That is true, Portland is a unique city with the fact that most cities that have surface parking lots have dead zones, but in Portland a surface parking lot can easily mean a food cart mecca. I really hope the city is able to find a balance between developing surface lots and maintaining the food cart culture in downtown.

I'd be okay with the city changing policies to allow food carts to rent curbside parking. The city started with bike corrals. Now they already are letting restaurants put patios on street parking. It seems like a natural expansion of that plan.

It'd be a great way to really increase street life if the parking lots are replaced with buildings and we embraced using areas that are currently designated for curbside parking for more active uses. Maybe a few of the existing parking lots end up becoming Smart Park garages (with first floor retail) to offset the loss of parking lots and on street parking.

[urbanlife]

Originally Posted by davehogan

I'd be okay with the city changing policies to allow food carts to rent curbside parking. The city started with bike corrals. Now they already are letting restaurants put patios on street parking. It seems like a natural expansion of that plan.

It'd be a great way to really increase street life if the parking lots are replaced with buildings and we embraced using areas that are currently designated for curbside parking for more active uses. Maybe a few of the existing parking lots end up becoming Smart Park garages (with first floor retail) to offset the loss of parking lots and on street parking.

I actually don't like the idea of food trucks taking up street parking in downtown. I see it in other cities and it just doesn't look as good and I feel like it doesn't guarantee the same carts will always be in the same place. In Portland with the food carts in the parking lots it is a better guarantee that the same places will be in the same spot every day. That also frees up street parking so that people who need short term parking can have access to it.

[2oh1]

Urbanlife: I agree 100%.

It's a conundrum. We want surface parking lots removed and redeveloped... except for the surface parking lots with food carts. We'd like to keep those.

In a perfect world, we'd hold some sort of fundraiser to buy a few of the food cart lots, tear out the remaining parking and replace it with tables and chairs. It's a fun thought, but it's not going to happen.

[65MAX]

I don't think there's any danger of running out of parking spaces to house food carts anytime soon. And even if we ran out of parking spaces, there are always nooks and crannies that a food cart pod would be able to fit into.

[MarkDaMan]

Originally Posted by 65MAX

I don't think there's any danger of running out of parking spaces to house food carts anytime soon. And even if we ran out of parking spaces, there are always nooks and crannies that a food cart pod would be able to fit into.

The best food carts are on the east side anyway!

[PDX City-State]

I hate parking lots, but I don't see how a tax is going to somehow spur development. Seems that all it would do is raise parking prices--at least in the short term.

There has got to be a better way to spur development downtown. If there were higher demand for new office space and high-end residential in the center of the city, then that would spur development. How can we attract more businesses to want to live downtown--which in turn will affect development. A parking tax will do nothing to address this. It just seems like small thinking...

[RainDog]

I imagine a downtown with less space dedicated to surface parking would be more vibrant and attractive to developers.

[2oh1]

Originally Posted by 65MAX

I don't think there's any danger of running out of parking spaces to house food carts anytime soon.

Uh... that's not what we're discussing at all. This thread is about a controversial parking lot tax for the sake of encouraging development. Development is a good thing, of course, but if a tax increases parking lot costs significantly, an unintended consequence would be that the increase gets passed on to those who rent the spaces, potentially pricing food carts out of business - or, at least, out of the areas where we enjoy them most, if the lots become too expensive for the food carts to do business in.

[2oh1]

Originally Posted by PDX City-State

I hate parking lots, but I don't see how a tax is going to somehow spur development. Seems that all it would do is raise parking prices--at least in the short term.

There has got to be a better way to spur development downtown. If there were higher demand for new office space and high-end residential in the center of the city, then that would spur development. How can we attract more businesses to want to live downtown--which in turn will affect development. A parking tax will do nothing to address this. It just seems like small thinking...

You've summed up my thoughts quite well.

[maccoinnich]

If you tax something, you get less of it. The idea is to tip the scale towards making it more economical to develop a site than it is to land bank it.

[cab]

The tax can be applied with carrots. Tax breaks for Carts or development. You give this one particular parking lot owner, and its pretty much one family that has caused the problem, a way out. Something has to be done or this family will just pass the lots on the their next generation and nothing will get built. The lots are completely holding back DT for a generation. Just think of this, how could anyone argue that people wouldnt want to live overlooking Tom McCall park in DT? Its simple unfathomable that nothing has been developed until you look at who owns the majority of the underused property. Once successful project on the waterfront and you'd see a rush of development. But it cant happen when a vision-less family holds DT development hostage. Time to go to war, they've had enough time.

[58rhodes]

Originally Posted by cab

The tax can be applied with carrots. Tax breaks for Carts or development. You give this one particular parking lot owner, and its pretty much one family that has caused the problem, a way out. Something has to be done or this family will just pass the lots on the their next generation and nothing will get built. The lots are completely holding back DT for a generation. Just think of this, how could anyone argue that people wouldnt want to live overlooking Tom McCall park in DT? Its simple unfathomable that nothing has been developed until you look at who owns the majority of the underused property. Once successful project on the waterfront and you'd see a rush of development. But it cant happen when a vision-less family holds DT development hostage. Time to go to war, they've had enough time.

Cant the city condemn some of this land?

[maccoinnich]

From the PBOT website:

Portland Parking Symposium



SAVE THE DATE | Portland Parking Symposium | Monday June 29, 2015

Join us for inspiration from leading experts as we explore innovative parking approaches, tools and strategies relevant to our Portland communities.


Program from 1-6 p.m.

FULL PROGRAM DESCRIPTION COMING SOON

Drop-in reception + open house from 6-8 p.m.

Come engage with us! Mingle with panelists, learn about businesses and organizations providing Transportation Demand Management tools and resources, get more information from Portland districts working on their parking and engage with the two main projects of the Portland Bureau of Transportation’s Citywide Parking Strategy: the Central City Parking Policy Update and the Centers and Corridors Parking Study. Enjoy food and festivities and tell the City of Portland what you think about the future of parking. We want to hear from you!

Portland Building | Second Floor Auditorium | 1120 SW Fifth Ave. | Portland, OR 97204

The event is FREE, space is limited, PLEASE RSVP
Francesca.patricolo@portlandoregon.gov or (503) 823-5282

[maccoinnich]

A rational look at Portland's parking future. Grrrr.

Portland transportation commissioner Steve Novick says he gets more complaints about parking than any other transportation issue, including street repairs and bicycle improvements.

Of course he does, says Jeff Tumlin, the keynote speaker at Monday’s Portland symposium on the future of parking. When you’re in your car hunting down a space, parking isn’t just about parking, says Tumlin, a national parking consultant based in San Francisco.

“Parking is oftentimes a proxy for deeper concerns and anxiety about place,” Tumlin says. “Parking becomes a flashpoint, the thing that people can focus on when they’re having a hard time figuring out what the underlying problem is.”

Road rage has entered the public consciousness, but parking rage is just as real, according to Tumlin. There have been murders committed over parking spaces, he says.

“Parking does something that sparks the reptilian centers of the brain,” Tumlin says.

...continues at the Portland Tribune.

[maccoinnich]

Large crowd at City-sponsored symposium learns evils of free parking



If anyone needed evidence that parking policy matters to Portlanders, it arrived at the Portland Building Monday in the form of 130 people, many armed with pen and paper, to attend a five-hour “symposium” on the subject.

The event organized by the Portland Bureau of Transportation drew a who’s-who of neighborhood association and city transportation officials. One was Transportation Commissioner Steve Novick, who said that parking was the transportation issue he hears about more than any other.

The keynote speaker, Nelson\Nygaard parking consultant Jeffrey Tumlin, presented a 16-point parking strategy that revolved around a single concept: parking is too expensive and too valuable for us to conceal its costs inside the price of everything else we buy.

...continues at BikePortland.

[maccoinnich]

This is actually quite a good article, and worth a read.

Parking getting scarce, costly



There are 5,967 curbside parking spaces in the section of Northwest Portland covered by the latest Northwest Portland Parking Plan.

So far this year, the Portland Bureau of Transportation has sold 6,953 annual parking permits to residents and businesses in that area. Tha’s about a thousand more than the number of spaces — and that doesn’t even include the 1,075 guest parking permits that have been sold.

Parking experts say a neighborhood can usually sell about 15 percent more permits than it has spaces, since not all vehicles are parked at the same time. But Northwest Portland will soon be way beyond that. Sounds like a prescription for disaster, right?

...continues at the Portland Tribune.

[maccoinnich]

Parking meters coming in stages



The areas with turquoise cross hatching will receive parking meters beginning this month. Twenty-first and 23rd avenues will be metered after Labor Day.

Parking meters are at last coming to the Northwest District this month, but the city gave retailers a reprieve by delaying meter installation on Northwest 21st and 23rd avenues until September.

Solar-powered “smart meters” will be installed on east-west streets between Northwest 18th/20th, 24th, Burnside and Pettygrove streets from July 21 until the end of August. Residents and employees purchasing permits may park in metered blocks without paying, but others will be subject to a $1.60 an hour charge.

Chris Armes, who manages the project for the Portland Bureau of Transportation, decided to cut businesses some slack and hold off on metering the main commercial corridors until after Labor Day.

...continues at the NW Examiner.

[maccoinnich]

Scandal to delay NW Portland meters, city says



The long-delayed installation of parking meters in Northwest Portland will likely be postponed again – but for how long is unclear.

Portland's bribe-tainted meter contract is to blame.

City transportation officials said Monday they won't install hundreds of Cale America parking meters until more is known about the role that company leadership played in a now-infamous 2006 contract manipulated by former city parking manager Ellis McCoy.

"We may have to postpone installation," said Dylan Rivera, a transportation spokesman.

...continues at the Oregonian.

[maccoinnich]

Portland considers parking-meter smart phone app




Portland officials hope to make parking in the central city a bit more convenient by allowing drivers to pay for parking on smart phones.

Interested? It'll cost ya.

If the city moves forward with its proposed 2016 technology rollout, drivers who opt to pay for parking on their phones would also pay a convenience fee of some sort – perhaps 25 cents.

City officials say the app proposal is all about improved customer service and has nothing to do with its standoff with Cale America, the city's parking-meter maker that is working to regain trust after the latest bombshell in a bribery scandal.

...continues at the Oregonian.

[maccoinnich]

This thread has really taken off! Anyway, on City Council agenda next week. Proposal is to increase parking rates to $2 an hour downtown.

1340 TIME CERTAIN: 3:00 PM –Approve hourly rate increase for on-street parking in the Downtown Meter District to better manage parking and provide a more safe and reliable parking system; to be implemented after the 2015 holiday shopping season (Ordinance introduced by Commissioner Novick; amend Policy TRN-3.450) 1 hour requested