Posted by spend spend spend, a resident of the Downtown North neighborhood, on Nov 1, 2012 at 10:32 am

New parking garages will cost $100 millon each. Not with my tax dollars. If employers want more parking, let them build new garages.

Posted by Mary, a resident of the College Terrace neighborhood, on Nov 1, 2012 at 10:50 am

There should be a fee to charge electric cars in City Garages. The owners of the cars shouldn't get free power that is paid with my tax dolloars.

Many Cities charge for parking garages. If the issue is so critical put up new garages, charge for them and also put parking meters on the streets that are very busy.

Posted by Crescent Park Dad, a resident of the Crescent Park neighborhood, on Nov 1, 2012 at 12:08 pm

As written in an earlier article - require developers to provide greater number of parking spots for new buildings.

Secondly, join the 21st Century and install parking meters that accept debit or credit cards (or iPhone app).

This is not rocket science and doesn't need a $150K study.

Posted by Wayne Martin, a resident of the Fairmeadow neighborhood, on Nov 1, 2012 at 1:14 pm

The link points to a letter sent previously to the City Council about the management of the downtown parking structures--

Web Link

Since the time this letter was sent, the Arrillaga project has been revealed, making the problem even larger.

It's very hard to believe that the current parking structure management--which is effectively the planning department and the City Manager, with nominal oversight by the City Council are up to this job--since none of these people can be held accountable for their decisions.

Wonder if any of the people running for City Council have thought through the issues, and been providing clear visions of what the City needs to do--once they are elected/re-elected to the Council.

It's also kind of amusing that we are paying the City Manager and his immediate staff around $2M in salary and benefits--and all they can do is contract out for "studies" which they then generally follow. What's the point of paying these huge salaries when all these folks do is sign contracts, and follow what these unaccountable consultants tell them to do. Come to think of it, maybe it's not so amusing after all.

Posted by curmudgeon, a resident of the Downtown North neighborhood, on Nov 1, 2012 at 1:20 pm

"What's the point of paying these huge salaries when all these folks do is sign contracts, and follow what these unaccountable consultants tell them to do."

It's the same story as in the private banking sector. Palo Alto pays huge salaries because the neighbors do. If it didn't, the city staff will take jobs elsewhere, and there would be nobody to sign Palo Alto's consulting contracts.

Posted by the_punnisher, a resident of Mountain View, on Nov 1, 2012 at 1:31 pm
the_punnisher is a member (registered user) of Palo Alto Online

An answer that works in other areas might be the answer here.

Just offer a 99 year lease ( or shorter ) to parking structure management companies. Paying for city parking is a new revenue stream that other cities have. Let THEM build the parking structures!

It appears that many city governments have this " We have to spend TAXPAYER MONEY for a consultant " mantra instead of DOING THEIR JOBS and researching a problem and presenting solutions that work in other cities.

People can be intellectuals and not have a lick of common sense. Is that the real problem in the SFBA?

Posted by KJ, a resident of the Crescent Park neighborhood, on Nov 1, 2012 at 1:55 pm

These don't sound like bold proposals. Talk to Sausalito, LA, and Indianapolis about the flexible-rate, space-tracking and reservation systems they are trying out. There is real-life experience now with smart parking solutions and they should be considered, especially for a new garage. And especially if it's true that paid-up places often stand empty in the garages we have now.

Posted by Ducatigirl, a resident of the Old Palo Alto neighborhood, on Nov 1, 2012 at 2:21 pm

We used to have an electric scooter, and it cost about five dollars an hour to charge it, or about twenty-five dollars a day. What must an electric car cost, as they require eight hours to charge? Getting you electric car charged for free is lke getting your gas engine car filled up for free, isn't it?

Posted by Concerned Retiree, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Nov 1, 2012 at 2:41 pm

Parking problems and too much congestion -- another argument against the out of scale and out of zoning building proposals by Chop Keenan and John Arrilliga.

Let's look at what it takes to improve our present traffic, parking and human congestion -- and keep our quality of life which we came to Palo Alto for.

Posted by Joseph E. Davis, a resident of Woodside, on Nov 3, 2012 at 8:34 am

This may come as a shock to residents of Palo Alto, but the technology to manage shortages of resources like parking spaces has been with us for thousands of years.

It is called the price system, and it works by increasing the price until there is enough of the resource left to satisfy new "customers".

Posted by Watching the Circus, a resident of another community, on Nov 4, 2012 at 7:52 am

Palo Altans and their cars....yuk yuk yuk. Amusing.

Posted by Not Exactly, a resident of the College Terrace neighborhood, on Nov 5, 2012 at 9:30 pm

"We used to have an electric scooter, and it cost about five dollars an hour to charge it, or about twenty-five dollars a day"

At 12 cents per kWh, your scooter would have to have been drawing over 40 kilowatts (for illustrative purposes: close to 60,000 horsepower) from the grid to run up that charge.

It looks like someone has been smoking their breakfast.