Fewer Parking Spaces? Paid Parking?

The plan is supposed to force employees to the periphery. But permits target employees while meters go after everyone. Customers are as likely to be driven off or more so than folks who are getting paid to come downtown (though not getting paid enough they should pay a new tax on all their hours).

The city says that people who pay to park are more likely to spend more. This is elitism. We want downtown to be accessible to everyone, not just the rich. Students, elderly and fixed income drivers should not be driven away with a parking tax.

While driving traffic away is bad for everyone, paid parking hits some businesses disproportionately. We are seeing many retail shops closing or moving and being replaced after long vacancies by chain restaurants. Paid parking will exacerbate this problem.

Paid parking will change the character of the downtown experience. Once we are all “on the meter” the stress of it eliminates window shopping, casual conversation, getting a drink or a snack after running errands, all the things we do on a trip downtown when we have the time. Instead we will have to rush back to our cars and get the Hell out or get a ticket. The city calls this “turnover” and lists it as an asset but turning downtown into a drive-thru is not our idea of an improvement.

There is no data or reasonable expectation saying that people who don't want to pay the parking tax will bike downtown or take public transportation instead. They are more likely to drive further to a mall or big box store, maybe even out of town, where parking is free. We expect more driving to result from paid parking, just less driving to downtown.

Downtown wants to draw from Woodland, Dixon, Winters, etc. Regional drivers will be less likely to come to Davis if they have to pay extra to park and Davisites may be enticed away as all these neighbors have free parking in their downtowns. To my knowledge the city has not taken loss of sales tax revenue #? into account when considering the impacts of paid parking.

It is also obvious that people will be looking for free parking in and around downtown. This means the areas that are not taxed will be overrun while those that are empty out. Being on the periphery will now mean that all your parking will be taken by drivers not visiting your business but ones blocks away. Private spaces will be taken by people ducking meters. The residences close to downtown will also see increased traffic of free parking seekers.

And of course the installation will be disruptive, the system will be a hassle and the number of tickets is going to shoot up.

Yes, the parking tax will make the city money #? though they won't say how much after the installation and enforcement cost. They also won't say #? how much it will cost for us to park but they are saying that they intend to raise costs as high as the market will bear to “manage” the traffic. But despite all evidence to the contrary, the city claims they are not doing this for the money, they are doing it to alleviate the parking shortage and help downtown. But it will hurt instead of help and downtown doesn't want it so if city doesn't even want the money there is no reason to go ahead with paid parking.

The proponents of paid parking have their experts, but once you know what you want to happen you can just pick your expert to match. The city paid a consultancy firm $1.5million to say paid parking is a good thing but I think downtown Davis knows more about downtown Davis and we will give the city our opinion for free if they will listen. Davis is not a high density tourist town like the other cities cited and served by the consultants. You can't expect Davis to be like SF, but we can expect Davisites to respond to paid parking as they have in the past. The impacts will be similar, though perhaps less drastic, to the change when the E St lot went paid and lost half of its use overnight. We know these things because we saw them happen. The experts on Davis live in Davis.

The Davis Downtown Business Association (DDBA) misled the city and the Council when the DDBA board endorsed paid parking. This gave the false impression that downtown business was OK with paid parking when surveys of DDBA members (which DDBA never took) show over 90% opposition to it. DDBA's board has so far refused to ask its membership's opinion and may maintain their position on paid parking but Council needs to reconsider given that they were misinformed.

The parking task force did a study in 2014 and gave a list of recommendations. Paid parking was on that list, but it was one of the last resorts after many other preferred changes. The city reversed the order to put paid parking as priority one while holding off on the rest. All the other suggestions should be implemented first to see if the parking shortage can be alleviated without a parking tax.

In recent years the city has removed parking spaces to bulb-outs, zipcars, bike parking in the street, patios, etc. The city has refused to disclose the total number #? of spaces removed but I walked the streets and counted well over 60 spaces, a number that is very close to what the city hopes to gain with paid parking, though they won't say what that number is #? exactly either. This means the city mismanaged the parking downtown by removing spaces until there was a critical shortage, then wants to tax what is left to relieve the shortage. All street and lot space downtown should be reclaimed when possible, fully and efficiently utilized and treated like a scarce resource, not thrown away for minor aesthetics.

The lot at 4^th and G has plenty of space. Issuing employee parking permits through employers for that lot and other underused peripheral space is a smart way to move employees without running off customers.

Paid parking is not a solution. It is a problem worse than what it pretends to fix. Real and sensible solutions remain unexplored that utilize existing resources without taxing them. The city claims they are not doing this for the tax money but to help downtown. They should listen to the businesses, customers, residents, employees, neighbors and visitors of downtown when we say we neither want nor need this help.