This:
Will become this:
Just days after confirmation that a nearly billion dollar development in the downtown of a struggling northeastern city was going to move forward, an employee of a governmental institution funded through tax dollars expropriated from private individuals and businesses wrote this letter to the editor:
I work at Juvenile Court in Springfield and pay $75 per month to park my car on Bliss Street. I was informed that I have 60 days to find another parking place due to the casino being built across the street from the courthouses on State Street.
Between the two courthouses, there are approximately 500 employees. All of the parking lots in the area will be gone permanently while the casino is being built. Where are the employees, as well as the general public who need access to the courts supposed to park?
The mayor, along with MGM, must address this problem immediately. Although the casino will add many jobs, what about the people that are already employed and will have no place to park?
When I first started working in downtown Springfield, there was a large parking lot in the north end under 91, and parking was free. A shuttle (the Ten Center) would travel down Main Street every 20 minutes and it would cost a dime to take the bus to and from your car. Perhaps something along those lines could be put in use again for people to gain access to downtown Springfield.
If you want people to come downtown and enjoy Springfield during this construction phase, the parking issue needs to be addressed immediately.
Acres of unproductive and underutilized space will be developed. Hundreds of millions of tax dollars will be paid directly to the entity (the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) which funds her salary. But the developer and the mayor of the city should take on themselves the responsibility of finding her a place to park her car? I don’t blame her. An expectation, an idiotic, ridiculous, unsustainable, irrational, and juvenile expectation, but an expectation nevertheless, has been created by suburban sprawl that it is the responsibility of urban places to accommodate private automobiles at little or no cost to the owner.
She has a job. She has a job in the center of the region. She has a job which conforms to a traditional schedule. She can pay to park her car at any number of remaining, underutilized, public or private garages and pay whatever the going rate is for the privilege. Alternatively, she could use the public transportation system whose hub is located just blocks from her place of employment and which passes within feet of her place of work. She can move to a residence within walking distance of the courthouse. Or she can quit her job. For people needing to access the court for reasons other than employment, again, the region’s public transportation system is centered blocks away.
You can have a vibrant city, or you can have a city where it’s cheap and convenient to park your car. The city, and eventually the private sector, needs to get out of the business of making itself unproductive (wasting potential productivity on car storage) and focus on making the downtown such a great place to be that people will give car storage the level of concern it deserves.
The proper response would be “Yeah, good luck with that.” I can’t wait to get there.
I would agree with you. Except I don’t agree with the attitude that comes across. Which is, “Tough luck lady. Deal with it or get out. We’re right, you’re wrong so shut up.” This person has a valid concern – even if you don’t agree with him/her. Changing a city, means individual people have to make sacrifices – some big, some small, but sacrifices none the same. And it looks like there are roughly 500 people having to make a sacrifice. They were not asked if they wanted to make a sacrifice, they were told. So my question for you is – What sacrifice are you making?
If that many parking spots are being removed, everyone involved knew it would affect a lot of people in the area. Did anyone take the opportunity to educate these people about options? Or did you arrogantly stand back to watch people flounder so you could make fun of them?
If you want people to offer support and be willing to make sacrifices, then you have to show that you care about them. That you understand they may need to make some changes. But that there are also alternatives. There are probably reasons this person doesn’t see public transportation as an alternative. Did you bother to find out why? Are there misconceptions about public transportation that need to be address?
You should know better than anyone, there is never a simple answer like ‘you should move’ or ‘you should get another job’. Actually, these type of responses are perfect for alienating those you most need support from – the tax-paying, vote-casting public.
So rather than seeing this as a complainer who just doesn’t get it and wants to stand in the way of progress, you should see this as “Oh, we may have missed the boat on this one.” The writer asked that the Mayor and MGM address this immediately. Will they do that? The writer may not get the answer he/she wants, but is asking for the situation to be address. This is the perfect opportunity to start a conversation, a conversation that should have started long ago.
Fair comments, but I would point out that my blog isn’t primarily intended to make converts to urbanism, it’s intended to inform people who are already inclined toward urbanism on what experience and practice have shown to work. I have written and done an extensive photo essay on the excess parking which exists downtown: literally thousands of empty spaces even at peak times with dozens of nearly empty lots and parking decks.
My tone in the post is intended to illicit just the response you’ve given however. To most the idea that cities and their success revolves around parking is gospel truth, in spite of the fact that the data shows it is antithetical to them. I want these people shocked. I want them offended. I want them to know that there exists a mindset that finding storage space for “your car” in an urban environment is your problem.
Frankly, when I think of the damage the pro parking attitude has done to cities nationwide I don’t think I was nearly offensive enough.