Permit Parking

[xandrex]

^ Areas which need residential permit parking and better pricing of street parking for visitors would be U-adjacent neighborhoods, Uptown, and inner Northeast.

The U and Uptown have a parking crunch, sure (I'd also throw in Loring Park, which can be a nightmare depending on where in the neighborhood you're looking), but Northeast? Sure, some Aveda students park in the neighborhood and walk over, but the parking crunch. I'm looking out my window right now and most of the block is empty. It helps that pretty much every apartment features off-street parking the area. The only real crunch I've seen was this year's restricted parking during the winter and for the Fourth of July celebrations. A permit system over here would be pretty useless.

[exiled_antipodean]

The U and Uptown have a parking crunch, sure (I'd also throw in Loring Park, which can be a nightmare depending on where in the neighborhood you're looking), but Northeast? .

Agreed on Loring Park. I don't think you'd need permit/coupon parking far into N.E., but certainly within a few blocks of Hennepin/Central.

[David Greene]

This is a great discussion and all and there are some great ideas for the future. But how do I work to prevent residential permit parking *now*? What kind of conversation do I have with my neighbors? I am really against taking public infrastructure and only making it available to a few.

[FISHMANPET]

I don't think there's any argument you can make to a person to convince them that limiting parking is in their personal best interest.

[exiled_antipodean]

I haven't used this one much myself, but I think asking people how the city would work if everywhere had permit parking gets them thinking about the issue, without accusing people of being selfish.

In Prospect Park, I've heard other people say "what if they had permit parking in Seward near the Birchwood?" to motivate thinking beyond parochial concerns.

It makes it more difficult for visitors is another one that's good, since the costs of it to residents themselves are then clear.

[Heather Greene]

If anyone is interested, there is a community meeting scheduled for tomorrow night (Wed Jul 30) at 6:30 at the Minnehaha Park Refectory (with Longfellow Comm Council, CM Johnson, Park Comm Musich, Traffic staff). The meeting will be about parking solutions for the residential area around Minnehaha Park. This is an area of single family homes with garages (mostly 2-car) so not the same situation as those living near Uptown and multi-unit buildings with little or no off-street parking. Nevertheless, residents here are attempting to get permit-only to keep park visitors from parking in front of their homes (which only happens heavily on Sat/Sun afternoons or during special events). It would be a good opportunity to find out where the city stands on these things. I don't have particularly high hopes since just last year they agreed to give permit-only parking to Drew Ave (by 50th) and Public Work declared that this [single-family homes w/garages] area "did not have adequate off-street parking" and therefore qualified for permits.

How can we get the city council (and perhaps more importantly, public works engineers) to reject permits as a viable solution? I do love the coupon idea if permits were to be issued and I think I will share that with CM Johnson if he hasn't seen it. How do we get Public Works to rewrite the requirements for permit-only qualification (which are currently extremely subjective and very easy to meet)?

[exiled_antipodean]

Print this out and give it to CM Johnson
https://streets.mn/2014/07/21/foreign-id ... aint-paul/

I've found people in Prospect Park pretty receptive to the idea. No reason you couldn't have Saturday/Sunday only coupons near Minnehaha Park.

[mattaudio]

If you want to see what reason and logic are up against, read this thread:
http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/mp ... efdVzgpTy/
If you have a longfellow e-democracy account, please add your voice for reason and logic.

[mattaudio]

Also on that thread, a parks commissioner (Scott Vreeland) came out against adding/converting parking areas to pay parking. Which is disappointing as it leads to regressive outcomes. Parking is a major crutch holding our city back. People go nuts about it, and they are wildly misinformed. Please step up and comment, either online or at the meeting, if you can.

[mattaudio]

How did we miss this ridiculousness?
http://kstp.com/article/stories/s3493883.shtml
"So much to do, so few places to park"

[Heather Greene]

It is still stunning to me that this news story was done. I'm fairly certain my neighbor must have had a friend at the station.
Thanks for the links and information. I have been pretty involved in discussions with neighbors and with CM Johnson already and tonight will be interesting, no doubt.

[billhelm]

Did anybody go to this meeting the other night? I'm curious to see what happened.

[mattaudio]

I made it there after the ZipRail meeting. I met quite a few allies, but there were many more whiners.

One thing that would be very effective is if we start driving Car2Gos over to the streets just north of the park, and then walkbikebus back. I hear that would be appreciated....

[David Greene]

I made it there after the ZipRail meeting. I met quite a few allies, but there were many more whiners.

There are always more whiners. They need 75% of residents on a block to implement permit parking. Even if the whiners are 60% of the population, they won't make it.

One thing that would be very effective is if we start driving Car2Gos over to the streets just north of the park, and then walkbikebus back. I hear that would be appreciated....

Is that a serious suggestion? Because certainly the best thing to do would be to piss off those other 40% and have them support permit parking.

[mattaudio]

The friendlies at the meeting said that the root cause is territorialism and that car2gos are seen as an affront to their way of life. Sea Salt employees driving Car2Gos to their street and destroying their freedom to not see Car2Gos. My point was to annoy the ones who are already pissed off. And the friendlies say the whiners probably have their 75%.

[David Greene]

And the friendlies say the whiners probably have their 75%.

That's disappointing. This place in particular deserves a full public hearing before permit parking is introduced. It's a citywide public asset.

[exiled_antipodean]

That's an irony of permit parking. The more loudly residents demand it, the more critically its claims need to be evaluated, since there are other legitimate users of the parking space. Yet the way we do it here (and many other cities) is that high resident demand for permit parking is treated as stronger evidence it is the solution.

[blobs]

What I don't get it, how do people live and park in Uptown? I mean it seems like every block is completely packed with cars. Of course I don't see that around where I live, most blocks are empty or have a few cars parked and there are more garages and less density. And you have to move your car during the winter for plowing. Where do Uptown people move their cars to?? Please enlighten me!

[David Greene]

You provide your own parking on your own land.

[ECtransplant]

Or just don't drive/park.