With downtown residents up in arms about a shortage of parking that’s led to neighborhood streets being clogged with parked cars, Palo Alto officials are considering a slew of solutions, including more spots for permit holders at two city garages, a valet program at another garage, parking restrictions in residential neighborhoods and a new parking structure that would be jointly developed by the city and one of downtown’s most prolific developers.
The City Council is scheduled Monday to discuss these proposals for alleviating one of the city’s most urgent and puzzling problems. The council underscored the issue’s growing profile last month, when it made “future of downtown and California Avenue” one of its three priorities for 2013. The city is also now embarking on a broad study of downtown to gauge how much additional development the area can handle.
The problem has hit a critical point in the last three years, with residents from the Professorville and Downtown North neighborhoods persistently complaining that parking spots in front of their homes are disappearing. Things are expected to get even worse in the coming years as a number of downtown developments proceed through the city’s approval process.
Neils Buchanan, a resident of Downtown North, addressed the council last Monday on the topic. “The impact of ever-increasing parking is very obvious to us,” he said, and the neighborhood is reaching a “saturation” point when it comes to parking. He urged the city to act expeditiously.
“We hope the City Council will give us a definitive solution, as you did to College Terrace,” Buchanan said, referring to a neighborhood next to Stanford University that has a residential parking-permit program.
Ken Alsman, a Professorville resident who has been one of the most outspoken critics of the downtown-parking policies, called his neighborhood the city’s “biggest public parking lot” and urged the city not to give developers any concessions when it comes to parking.
“We have been giving multi-million dollar grants to developers who don’t need it or deserve it, and the neighbors are paying for that,” Alsman said, referring to exceptions that reduce the number of parking spaces required at new buildings.
One of the ideas that the council is scheduled to consider Monday is a proposal by developer Charles “Chop” Keenan to help the city build a garage near his soon-to-be-constructed office development at 135 Hamilton Ave. The garage would have room for 145 self-parked cars or 194 cars using tandem or stacked parking. Under Keenan’s proposal, the office development would use the top two floors of the five-story garage (63 spaces, or 93 if cars are stacked), though they would become available to the public on the weekends and after 6 p.m. on the weekdays.
Keenan proposes having the city contribute $1 million toward construction of the new garage, with his company taking care of the balance of the project, which he expects to cost about $8 million, according to his proposal.
Keenan’s building is one of about a dozen downtown developments that are currently under construction or going through the planning process. These include the Lytton Gateway project at Alma Street and Lytton Avenue, the new hotel slated for the Casa Olga site on Hamilton and Emerson Street, and a four-story project planned for 636 Waverley St. These projects will bring about 95,000 square feet of non-residential development, pushing the downtown area well beyond the threshold for new development that the city approved in 1986. Reaching that 223,000-square-foot limit requires the city to conduct an analysis of downtown and consider whether it can accommodate further development. The city plans to send out requests for proposals for the new study by the end of this month.
The new report from the planning department notes that downtown buildings’ vacancy rates are now below 2 percent, and lease rates for offices are in the $6 to $6.50 per square foot range — among the highest in the country.
“Many of the newer office developments, however, have not provided parking to the level required by the zoning code, as exemptions are provided for transferable development rights and other provisions,” the report states. “Many approved or upcoming projects have potential to add to the square footage of office space downtown or to impact downtown or nearby parking or traffic.”
City staff plans to introduce proposals in the coming months to eliminate some of these parking exemptions. But as an overture to frustrated downtown residents, the city is considering more near-term solutions. One involves selling 174 more parking permits total at the Bryant Street and Cowper Street garages starting at the end of this month, a move that is expected to reduce waiting lists for downtown parking permits. The city also plans to introduce a valet program at the garage on High Street between University Avenue and Hamilton. This attendant-parking program is expected to increase capacity at the garage by 20 percent, though it would also drive up permit costs.
Another short-term measure is reducing the number of parking spaces in the City Hall garage alloted to city employees. The city plans to introduce a “transportation-demand management” program that would give workers incentives to take alternative modes of transportation, a move expected to free up 50 to 100 spaces.
At the same time, staff and its consultant are evaluating five other downtown locations as possible sites for parking garages. These include lots on Hamilton Avenue and Waverley Street; on Gilman Street and Bryant Street; on Gilman and Waverley Street; on High Street between Hamilton and University avenues; and on Urban Lane. Staff plans to bring an interim report to the council about these sites in May.
Another garage with parking permits – wasted effort unless you make all the garages pay per hour with perhaps first 2 hours free.
It has been proven by the fact that there are permit spaces available that people are not in favor of monthly, quarterly or annual permits.
I and many other people want to park for several hours once or twice a week, a month, or a year, without having to go to city hall or drive around town looking for hourly parking.
Make what we have pay per hour and make it easier for casual all day parking.
I agree that monthly permits are a thing of the past and have to go. Paying by the month just encourages people to drive to work every day, which fewer and fewer people want to do. Many people now work from home or take transit or carpool some of the time. Also, many downtown employers use a lot of part-time workers. Parking has to be made practical for people who don’t drive all the time.
Depending on the how many cars can be parked here, the cost/parking-spot will be between $47,000 and $62,000. These costs are “externalities” associated with downtown development which the City Council/Staff have been ignoring in previous years.
In this case, it would seem that Keenan owns the property, so that any additional cost of acquiring land for a parking garage has been absorbed in the total cost of the project he is building.
135 Hamilton Project:
http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/31184
Additional downtown parking is clearly not inexpensive. The public should not be expected to contribute very much to any new parking that is built.
I agree that the cost of adding public parking is so horrendously expensive, that the city should be doing everything it can to encourage non-solo-driving. Electrify Caltrain to boost speed and capacity. Enlarge the city shuttle bus system. More bike lanes. And what happened to that bike share system that they were talking about years ago?
> Caltrain to boost speed and capacity
Electrifying Caltrain will neither boast speed, nor increase capacity. Diesel engines are fully capable of hauling more passenger cars than they do now. The number of cars is based on demand, and the cost to provide that demand.
Electrical power will not make a train go faster. There are natural safety limits that people should be aware of by now. For instance, 60 miles an hour under diesel power is exactly the same as 60 miles an hour under any other motive force–such as electricity. The key issues that need to be considered is stopping distances as speeds increase and as the weight of the train increases.
Electrifying Caltrain will produce nothing except a transfer of hundreds of millions (or perhaps more) to the construction industry, which will end up being nothig more than public subsidy of labor unions.
Caltrain is a money pit, that produces little more than public embarrasment to those who have studied their finances.
Have you studied the finances of public parking garages? The city has already spent upwards of $100,000,000 on public parking garages. How much of that has been paid back through parking fees? Why can’t the city charge enough to break even? That is the real boondoggle.
Same goes for those $100,000,000 on-ramps that they are building on Hwy 101 in Palo Alto right now. What is the point of spending all that money on highways when there is no place to park the cars? Double boondoggle.
DPIAF, you act like you know everything but know nothing.
Electrification will substantial lly increase capacity at lower cost. Trains will be able to accelerate and decelerate more quickly.
Caltrain is one of the most cost efficient transit systemsthor the taxpayer in the country. You should look up the facts rather than spouting off the top of your head.
“Caltrain is a money pit, that produces little more than public embarrasment”
That’s odd, I could have sworn Caltrain had the highest per mile ridership of any commuter rail in the nation, outside of New York…
@Resident. You state that there are permit spaces available. I tried a month ago to get one or two of those for our employees for a construction project we’re doing downtown. I was told there’s a long waiting list of people wanting those long-term permits. I had to settle for $16 per day daily permits that can be used in the garages.
I got a ticket last week for parking behind the Post Office on Gilman. Just parked to do a couple of errands, not long term.
Why has the city turned our public lots to require PERMITS? We paid for the construction of these lots now we cant use them.
Mt view has ample parking so I recommend it. I have lost interest in University Ave over the last decade or so, so I would recommend not wasting my tax dollars on projects that will drag on for years and be way over budget.
Town and Country has also gone from a sleepy little mall to a traffic congestion for 2 major streets and no parking.
The resident parking situation in the University South is just as dire.
Sylvia
That is interesting if you say that there are no permit spots available and there are wait lists. I have seen empty spots in the garages during the day. So do people have the permit spots and not use them?
That would be worth looking into.
> The city has already spent upwards of $100,000,000
> on public parking garages
You’ll want to check into this a little more. While it may be true that the downtown parking garages have cost $100M, the downtown business have agreed to pay for them through a parking assessment district–not the City. The merchants get the money by charging their clients/customers more than just the simple cost-of-goods/services, to be able to pay their assessments.
This parking assessment district is not all that well documented, so what might happen if the parking assessment district were to default on payments is not clear. It would seem that the City is the owner, but the assessment district is paying the bill.
A complete airing of the situation should be made before anymore parking garages are built that involve the City in any way.
The College Terrace residential permit parking program (RPPP) is a permanent program funded by Stanford as mitigation for the Stanford 2000 County General Use Permit (GUP). My understanding is that, to put permit parking in place, funding must be provided so that the policy can be policed and enforced. So perhaps the developers should be requiired to pay this expense.
Speaking of assessments, does Larry Stone (our tax assessor) send a possessory interest tax invoice to holders of monthly parking permits? I can’t imagine any overlooked revenue source these days, so what makes these leases exempt?
Side off-topic question to Chris, how does electrification allow a train to decelerate more quickly? Maybe more efficiently. Any quantitative numbers on what accelerations are deemed comfortable for public transit passengers not wearing seatbelts and shoulder harnesses? Think I’ve seen 3 mph/sec for BART acceleration. Until electrified, Caltrain is doomed to be much slower off the mark, since only four axles of the whole train are powered presently. But it is a more pleasant ride.
The Freakonomics folks just released an interesting podcast entitled, “Parking is Hell”
http://www.freakonomics.com/tag/parking/
I think it totally relates to our issues here in Palo Alto!!
“Under Keenan’s proposal, the office development would use … 63 spaces”. Oh wow, the new development is only going to add 63 more cars trying to park downtown! However “The garage would have room for 145 self-parked cars”. He will surely solve our parking problems …
If more parking spaces aren’t created than new drivers are brought in, the problem will get worse. Fantasies aren’t going to improve Palo Alto but if planning is bases on fantasies Palo Alto will become a nightmare. New development must help pay to fix an already existing problem.
@Chris – Electric trains accelerate faster, but it doesn’t end up making much difference. Bayrail Alliance says it will only cut 7 minutes off the 1:30 trip from San Jose to San Francisco. Is that really worth the money?
Many people, myself included, like to make a half day or a day of shopping and get it all over with in one fell swoop, perhaps having lunch or dinner there, too.
San Jose’s downtown has some parking lots Nd garages that have one electronic meter for the whole lot/garage, and it takes credit cards. You can stay all day if you wish, but you pay for it.
Permits are for people who work downtown everyday, not for occasional shoppers. Get real.
Everyone should read this article.
http://www.metroplanning.org/news-events/blog-post/6233
Some quotes from within:
“Quality sidewalks and protected bicycle paths are not cute architectural features; they are a right, unless we believe that only those with access to a car have the right to safe individual mobility.”
“A protected bicycle way is a symbol of democracy. It shows that a citizen on a $30 bicycle is equally important as one in a $30,000 car.”
Their parking problems are not so different than our own, and they’ve made their cities better.
Now that is what I call a bike path. Not the apologies we have here.
Electrification won’t make the full trip from San Francisco to San Jose much faster.
But the quicker will allow Caltrain to stop at more stations – for example, Cal Ave and San Antonio, which have poor schedules now, are likely to have better schedules. These areas are seeing some more development so the extra service will help with traffic and parking.
Caltrain will also need to make tradeoffs – how much service does it want to provide to stations like Cal Ave and how much to apply time savings to faster bullets.
Whoa, Cal Ave is my stop.
@Adina – I agree, and just so we are all being clear: an electrified train will either be a few minutes faster, or allow a few extra stops at the same speed or slower. It just seems like a lot of money for not that much.
@Darwin Just because protected bicycle lanes might be nice in big urban cities like Paris, London, and Bogota with multi-million populations doesn’t mean it makes sense in a small suburban commuter town like Palo Alto. It’s about as relevant as an article on how great the New York subway system is.
Parking is the financial resoinsibiliy of developers and property owners, not the City, not the public. Only in Palo Alto downtown do property owner owners and developers get these multi- million dollar gifts that adjacent residents pay for with the livability, safety, quality and value of their homes and neighborhood.. Write to the city council and tell them they must turn this around and require existing and future usages to provide the parking needed by the on-site employees.
Ke Alsman
The are so many cities from San Francisco to San Jose that offer municipal parking for a fee, often with a one or two hour grace period.
I did this today at San Jose City Hall.
We are talking prime real estate, and Palo Alto is foolish to not do what is done in other cities on the Peninsula which charge for parking access that is of high value.
Palo Alto does have an issue with how the generally lower paid employees who are an essential part of the downtown retail environment, and that is a separate issue.
Start charging for those garages, and where appropriate, some of the parking lots. That should be done before any additional parking capacity come to the table.
Never heard of this before .. so looked it up–
Taxable Possessory Interest (PI) – What is It?
http://assessor.lacounty.gov/extranet/overview/possint.aspx
How about partnering up with Caltrain and converting the existing street level Caltrain parking lots in the city to parking garages, they could build up and below grade. That would be a lot of parking spots created without losing existing retail to parking spaces. Workers down town could be encouraged to use the parking garages near the tracks which would free up the ones in down town for shoppers, diners, visitors.
bike bridge, garage and more garage.. No plastic bag and no waste pickup. No infrastructure money, no problem but need a dog park. More bonds, more measures. bah bah bah..
> Start charging for those garages, and
> where appropriate, some of the parking lots
The City is currently charging for garage parking—dragging in over $1M a year. However, there is no clear evidence as to what model the City is using for setting permit numbers, or prices—relative to the demand for parking.
What is needed is a comprehensive model that can make meaningful estimates about how the many cars will use the garage/lots under different pricing models. Some people are suggesting shifting from permit parking to metered parking. While this is an obvious suggestion—how will it affect the utilization of garages/lots? Another issue that is lurking about is how many people would use the garages/lots if the knew that there were spaces available without having to drive around from garage/lot to garage/lot looking for open spaces? People’s time is valuable. This fact seems to elude most City of Palo Alto employees.
And of course, we might also consider what kinds of inducements that we might offer current companies occupying space in the downtown area to move on—thereby making the problem go away.
The incentive to buy permits should be that it works out cheaper than paying for a full day’s parking.
For example, if the charge per day was $10 paid at a machine, and if the daily charge for a monthly permit was $8, then it would give an incentive to all daily workers to buy a monthly permit which would presumably save on his time also.
If on the other hand, the daily charge was $8 and the permit worked out at $10 per day, there would be no incentive to buy a permit unless of course there was the likelihood that finding a non permit space was nil. The only incentive here would be the guarantee of a space in a specific garage.
Parking in Palo Alto needs to be looked at from many aspects.
We have some workers who park in Palo Alto 95% of work days. In other full time workers. We have some workers who work part time during the week for many reasons.
We also have some people who want to park several times a month, perhaps for shopping or business meetings that last more than 3 hours.
We also have visitors who arrive, not knowing the area at all, and want to park for a full day.
We need to be able to meet all these needs efficiently and affordably. Don’t make it difficult for any one group over any other.
Most people accept that in a downtown area parking will cost money, but they do expect to be able to find parking relatively easily. Downtown Palo Alto already has a reputation for being difficult to park for more than 2 hours. That alone must detract people from wanting to do business in downtown, whether it be retail or their employment business. To attract people to come downtown we should be looking at parking as a priority. It is not just full time workers who need to park, but frequent, occasional or one time visitors. At present, the frequent, occasional and one time visitors are being left out of the mix.ieNpq
@Mr.Recycle, when the daytime population is well over 100,000 people, I would say that it is more than relevant. And OBVIOUSLY, I’m not suggesting that Palo Alto adopt a major program like the aforementioned cities, but a smaller approach is surely an appropriate measure.
Re Taxable Possessory Interest, I learned about it the hard way in the context of an item down that list, “Adult/night schools operating in a public school,” even as a non-profit organization. The amounts are small but they add up.
The criteria seemed to be that the use of the public property is regularly scheduled for an extended period and the user has exclusive right to use the space at these scheduled times. The assessor website says “a taxable possessory interest exists whenever a private person or persons have the exclusive right to a beneficial use of tax exempt publicly owned real property.”
I suppose it would not be applicable to parking permits unless they were for specific numbered slots and not just a general permit area. Didn’t really intend to bring up a red-herring here.
Technically I should correct my earlier post, the assessor just values the property — the tax bill itself is sent by the Santa Clara County Tax Collector’s Office.
@Darwin – For perspective, Bogota’s population is over 7 million, and that’s why bike paths might work. The people are already in the city. Palo Alto’s large daytime population (125,000 according to PAPD) is exactly why bike paths are just a vanity project. Do you think 60,000 commuters can ride their bikes down 101 or across the Dumbarton bridge to get to some nice urban bike paths here? Because Palo Alto is a suburban commuter town, it will always be car dependent.
@Mr. Recycle, you can call it a vanity project all you want, I call it a different way to get to work. Not everyone comes from the East Bay. There are thousands of us who come just up from the south. Riding my bicycle to work is an absolute nightmare.
You’re welcome to be negative and call it whatever kind of boondoggle you want to call it. I want a clean and efficient way to get to work where I’m not getting buzzed by single rider SUVs going 40MPH in a 25MPH zone.
I’m not suggesting that we get 60,000 people out of their cars and on to bikes or into buses, but if we could get as few as 5,000 out of their cars that would be a huge accomplishment.
You seem hellbent on comparing the city of Palo Alto to major urban areas, and throwing out the idea completely because of that. I’m saying a smaller version of what other cities have used to help our daytime congestion is not only worth looking at, but a crime to completely dismiss.
Keep calling it a vanity project 15 years from now when the congestion only gets worse.
Wow, the “slew of new options” doesn’t include more metered parking? Charge more for parking and there will be less demand.
Another car centered project, yes I understand the need for parking. 50, 40, 30, 20 and even 10 years ago some sort of transit or highway project was dreamed of, planned or proposed. Few get built. Yes, a light rail lines were built, BART is being extended, trails and bike paths were built.
We just need they improvements to keep coming, improved ridership means less garages and parking spaces.
> improved ridership means less garages and parking spaces.
Not even remotely true!
@Darwin – You have literally defined a vanity project – you want a bike path for yourself. You say 5,000 would be an accomplishment, and it would because it would never happen. But even if you could get 5,000, how much would it cost? And for the other 100,000 people who have to drive somewhere every day, does it help or hurt them? Do you want to take one lane out of El Camino and slow the cars to bike speed? If you want a bike centered life, which is great, don’t live and work in the suburbs, pick someplace where it makes sense like San Francisco.
@Mr.Recycle
You do realize that things in the world actually change right? Despite what you may or may not want, its not set in stone that Palo Alto will always be “a small suburban commuter town”.
We aren’t going to get rid of the car, just saying if we figure out a way to increase ridership on bikes, car pools, shuttles, transit or other means. We might not need extra parking spaces, more cars driving to those extra spaces.
I like idea of having a few big central garages with quick access on and off the freeway, you either shuttle, rent a bike or walk in.
No speeding cars running stop signs on little residential street next to schools.
We may be a suburb when it comes to residential lifestyle, but we are also a destination work centre. As many, if not more, people are commuting here daily as are commuting out of town.
For this reason, we need to look beyond the one way commute route traffic but two way traffic. Our residents are not commuting to downtown to work so shuttles and bikes are not going to get them there. We are getting commuters from 10 plus miles who are commuting from both highways as well as other through routes.
Parking is necessary and will continue to be necessary as long as we have businesses (not retail) within our town.
@Mr.Recycle, for myself and others, and to encourage others to find alternative ways for commuting. You really want to talk vanity? This article is about creating parking structures for cars driven by 1 person. You don’t call THAT a vanity project?
Why does the commuter behind the wheel currently have more rights than the commuter on a bike or the commuter on 2 feet? Why do we continue to try and find answers to outdated questions?
Why do we ask how we can improve parking for motorists? Why don’t we ask more different and modern questions instead? What can we do to make it easier for alternative forms of transportation to visit and work in Palo Alto? Are we still such slaves to the automobile industry that we’re unable to see a larger picture here?
I’m not suggesting that we make it more difficult for drivers or that people stop driving completely. That’s a ridiculous thought. But we do need to create alternatives for the average person.
Metered parking for all downtown would have a very negative affect on downtown retail and a very positive impact on Stanford Shopping Center and other nearby retail centers. Changing the permit system to optimize for all day parking makes much more sense. I like the idea where a daily permit would be more cost affective than a monthly permit. This could really improve availability in the garages, and should reduce the number of many empty but paid for slots.
@Darwin You say you aren’t suggesting that we make it more difficult for drivers, but you posted an article about rededicating car lanes to bicycles. Where are you going to get a dedicated bike lane without taking car lanes offline? Cars don;t have more rights than bikes, but you just need to deal with reality, and that reality as accommodating people driving in and out of the city.
@Robert – Call me when PA hits 250k – until then any serious mass transit or bike option is fantasy (or vanity).
This morning’s Post (Sat.) has a picture of a parking structure in Miami that “Chop” Keenan says is his “inspiration” for a similar structure in Palo Alto. The Miami structure is very “modern”–looking more like a huge piece of Art than a traditional garage.
We have designed our habits, our errands on cars. We aren’t going to get rid of the need, want or desire to own a car.
Parking is needed, so is lanes of traffic, but we must also plan for others means of moving place to place.
But lets face it, our homes, workplaces, shopping even picking up coffee is based on cars. Almost got hit while walking from bank to Starbucks. Drive Thu window and early morning driver.
DO NOT CHARGE FOR PARKING,
OR
IF WE DO CHARGE MAKE IT JUST A CHARGE TOKEN PAYMENT
that undersells other cities.
If Palo Alto does not charge for parking, and we have enough
of it, it makes it much more pleasant to come to Palo Alto.
I have having to go to Redwood City, maybe in the rain and
walk over and have to figure out their whole parking scheme
and get change, or put in a credit card or whatever, it is a
pain in the neck.
This is a cost to having a city where people can move around,
and now and for the future we are going to that with cars.
The parking structures are great. I go downtown every so
and every time I have there is always a fast place for me to
park in a parking structure just down the street from
wherever I am going if I don’t see a space on the way.
There are no walks very far in Palo Alto from the parking
structures, and another one maybe somewhere nearby the
Post Office would be great.
In another 20 years a lot of our problems will be solved
by technology, our cars will drive themselves, and our cars
will be able to know and reserve in advance parking places.
Maybe they can figure how to do it so cars can figure how
to maneuver around each other without having to stop
and wait for lights, wasting gas while idling. Imagine
how much time and energy that would save?
People are just so silly when it comes to this subject of cars. Cars are amazing conveniences, and yes, they are not perfect, but imagine how someone a hundred years ago would have to walk or get in their horse and buggy and spend a day going to the few limited places they would get to in a reasonable time, imagine how much our economy is speeded up and how many goods, services and events we can go to because of cars.
Yeah, I think it would be great if public transit could perform the same function, but it cannot. There are sick people, violent people, bums, and often too many crowds with too long waits. To get that system into working order takes a certain density of people and demand .. and still we have things like Oscar Grant who was shot, or the guy who was killed by the tracks in Redwood City a few years ago.
There are a lot of reasons not to want to interact with unfiltered members of the public, and while it might be fine for you and me, it is not for everyone and many will want to and need to drive their cars. So lets figure out the real costs and benefits of cars, roads and how we build our cities and see if we can do better, but this thing of just blaming cars for everything is just another waste of time.
For example, there has been suggested that if we worked to reverse the destruction of land into desert that we would promote the growth of enough greenery to end and reverse global warming ….
Alan Savory: How to green the world’s deserts and reverse climate change
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI
In any case there may be a very quick solution to oil, and energy and global warming … the big problems are always political.