posted June 25, 2006
As drivers we pay for drivers lisense, buy auto tags, purchase city stickers and still we pay to park wherever we go downtown.
Personally, I will never again visit the Northshore or the two parks or any affair downtown where I have to pay to park. This goes for city meters or commercial lots because it is unfair and is an unneccessary expense.
It is an unfair tax. We pay at the hospital and some doctors lots. We pay at the stadiums and all other affairs. It does not matter if the downtown workers hog the spaces all day, but that is a benefit for working and eating downtown and for patronizing downtown.
It should be the city's job to worry about traffic flow and lack of jams rather than how long a person parks or where they park as long as they do not obstruct the flow of traffic. I have said it once and I'll say it again that it will not surprise me if we install parking meters in the church lots and the National Cemetery.
I think that CARTA should be only in the bus running business and learn to do a better job on routing it and I think that a parking meter should be placed in the front curb of every commissioner's home both city and county and one for the mayor and Mr. Dugan, and let them feed the meters all night long. They can come back with as many comments as they like because someone is going to say that the turnover helps their cause for one reason or another, but that reply will be very small percentage wise.
Now I have two dollars left after leaving my last paid parking space and I will bet that two dollars that 90 percent of the local people will agree with me and are willing to vote out the parking meter laws and any paid parking if they could vote on the subject. In the old days they called it fee grabbing when the law arrested you for nothing and let you pay your way out of jail for a crime that was never committed in the first place. Parking meters are fee grabbing because you are paying to park in your own taxpaying space.
Why are we paying and what is the crime? It's an unfair tax or call it fee grabbing if you will. And even with meters, you still can't find an empty space unless you just happen to drive up when someone is pulling out.. Small chance as even that rarely happens so what do the rules prove? It sure hasn't corrected the parking problem because with meters and paid parking the problem still exists.
Is this a source of revenue or are we spinning our wheels? If it is a business gripe, the person is going to come out and feed the meter again and is not going to purchase anything from any particular place anyway. So where do we go from here? Extend the meter plan farther out as we are presently doing from time to time and when a person complains, the answer is So What?
Robert W. Baine
robtbaine@cs.com
* * *
Mr. Blaine brings up several good points concerning parking in Chattanooga (or, for that matter, in any city). And it is good to have a dialogue on parking in downtown Chattanooga as changes continue. While Mr. Blaine identifies the key issues, his conclusions are wrong.
Let's stop thinking of parking as free or paid parking. Does anyone really think there is such a thing as free parking. The next time you go to Northgate, Hamilton Place, or even smaller neighborhood retails centers, look around. Think of how much it cost to purchase the land for parking, how much it cost to pave it and repave it and patch it, how much it costs to line the parking spaces and reline them, think of the cost of cleaning the lots from trash, think of the lighting cost, and think of the cost for paying for insurance and security services. If you think that any business provides this to you for free, you are mistaken. It is a cost of doing business and is passed on to each us through the prices we pay for the goods we buy.
Parking meters have been around in Chattanooga for about 50 years. There are three reasons for having meters. One is to regulate the use of the space. The second is to create a revenue source. And the third is to permit the easy control of spaces during special situations (bagging the meters). Off-street parking is more for the provision of space for customers and employees that wish to stay for longer periods of time.
Yes, Mr. Blaine, turnover at the meters is an objective. Curbside parking spaces are the most valuable to the businesses and it makes a great deal of sense for those spaces to be used many times during the day so as to provide opportunity for more people to get close to their destinations. Unfortunately, I agree with you that it is not working in all areas as it should.
Over the years we have gotten upside down with our parking policies. It is much cheaper to feed a meter all day than it is to park in s surface lot or a garage. Thus, we encourage people to break the law and feed meters. It will take time but we will reverse this policy. Meters should be for people who wish to go to a business for a short period of time - less than 2 hours. Surface lots and garages should be for people who need more time. And they should be priced accordingly. The new lots at Renaissance Park reflect this policy. They are intended for persons to be there for up to 4 hours. So they are prices at $1.00 for two hours, $2.00 for up to four hours, and then it is priced at $5.00 for more than 4 hours to discourage all day parking. It will take several years to get the system priced correctly and to have both curbside and offstreet parking within easy distance of the driver throughout the downtown.
In addition, CARTA is installing new parking equipment that will permit payment with cash, but also will permit credit cards, and, in the future, debit cards. This will make the process much easier than trying to always have the proper change in your pocket or your car.
As to revenue, it should be (and will be with CARTA) a secondary consideration. However, we have stated all along that in our function as a parking authority for the City of Chattanooga, we will use net revenue to develop additional parking facilities or expand the shuttle to connect parking with destinations. The downtown shuttle now carries between 900,000 and 1 million passengers per year, primarily from parking facilities to destinations. This reduces downtown congestion and allows you to park once and visit many downtown areas.
New parking garages cost about $15,000 per space to construct, much more than can be generated through parking revenue. So, we seek ways of using current revenue to plan and construct for future parking needs. Parking is very much a critical component of economic development, downtown as it is in the suburbs.
On a personal note, I am a regular user of downtown although my office is a couple of miles outside of downtown and I live in Hixson. Parking has never been a problem for me except remembering to bring change. That goes for the North Shore, too. I am also a user of the malls and restaurants in the suburbs. And when you do have a walk some distance, whether it is because of holiday traffic at the mall, or tourist traffic in downtown, I find that the shuttle option downtown and the ambience downtown make walking much more interesting.
Come on, Mr. Blaine, use that last $2 you have to drive your family to the new Renaissance Park and then walk a tenth of a mile over to the North Shore stores. All that for $2 is a deal that you can't beat.
Tom Dugan
CARTA Executive Director
dugan_tom@carta-bus.org
* * *
I have lived in this city for 70 years and remember some things about
the parking situation. Years ago the city recognized the problem and
decided the only thing they could do was go into the parking business. This upset those in the business and the compromise was the private
businesses committed they would provide the needed parking if the city would stay out the parking business. As I remember, this suited the city. What happened? The private businesses failed to live up to their
word. They never built the needed parking garages, the shopping centers
had convenient parking and downtown almost died. To this day, years later, the problems still exist even though most of the county goes to shopping centers.
Maybe CARTA should break even in the transportation business before
taking on another activity. Southern Coach quit because it didn't pay,
but they didn't have access to tax money.
N. D. Kennedy Sr.
n_kennedy@bellsouth.net
* * *
To Tom Dugan:
I thought your comments on parking in reply to Robert Baine’s letter were well-reasoned and as such an improvement on the city’s usual positions on the matter. There is a fundamental dynamic at work here, however, that you seem to be missing, one which always needs to be borne in mind by CARTA or anyone else dealing with parking issues in Chattanooga: the plentiful alternatives available in the form of free parking at nearby suburban commercial developments. Mr. Baine does not have to be “right” to be correct here, because like so many other consumers in Chattanooga, he will vote with his tires and his wallet. If downtown parking is more difficult or expensive than parking at Northgate or Hamilton Place, guess where he, and thousands like him, will go?
This feature of Chattanooga distinguishes it from many other markets from which I think many of our “comparative” parking and traffic studies are erroneously drawn: our urban core is not so dense that a man like Tom living in or near it cannot be in a mall parking lot- with many comparable dining and shopping options- in 10 or 15 minutes, with completely free parking. He will probably feel safer there (though he’d probably be wrong) and he will almost certainly feel more comfortable. You note that there is no such thing as free parking, but you are very wrong about that. Parking at a mall may not be free for the developer, but it is very much free for Mr. Baine and anyone else who chooses to park there. The fact that suburban, rank-and-file Chattanoogans (who unlike many do not patronize downtown out of a sense of moral obligation) have such easy access to great shopping and dining with free parking is a real problem for downtown businesses, and one that we ignore at the peril of their health.
Perhaps we should consider parking “districts” where the costs of parking (which are as real at Hamilton Place as they are downtown, as you correctly point out) are covered wholly or partially by the businesses that benefit from the patronage. It would be simple enough to collect “dues” from member businesses in a given district (like the Northshore) and remit them to CARTA or the City, crediting these funds to the same account you would parking meter revenue.
I am sure that in your line of work, you have access to many other creative solutions as well, but to treat Chattanooga’s downtown like you would a larger city’s is to make a grave- and potentially fatal- miscalculation. Guys like Mr. Baine have too many choices for us to act as though it’s a privilege for him to come downtown and spend his money. On the contrary, with all the competition for his dollar, it’s a privilege for downtown to have the Mr. Baines of the world visit, and our parking schemes must recognize this.
Tim Kelly
Chattanooga
tkelly@kellycars.com
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