Far too often city councils, state legislatures, and Congress, put their words in action before good sound thought. They normally fear they will be seen as a body of inaction if they don't do something even if it is wrong. Later they will attempt to correct the problems caused by their bad rule, ordnance or law, in a hurry, and make the situation worse.

Recommendation is to take the time to create a rule, ordnance, or law that will take care of the situation that it was intended to take care of without creating other problems. Vet it with reviews and thoroughly review residents concerns, before putting it up for the voters.

Time may be a concern for the impatient, but good use of it prevents problems.

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It's not ill-considered, it's carefully designed to fail. Who would expect Pat Burt, Greg Scharff and Liz Kniss to propose a workable tax on business?

These are the core supporters of big office building construction, and reduced parking requirements. They consistently vote for big development, and now expect them to propose a workable tax on business to ameliorate the traffic problems they created?
When it fails they can say, "We tried!" Cynical and experienced politicians, skilled at fooling the public.

The only missing cast members in this comedy are Berman and Wolbach. Maybe they'll vote to pass it. Oh how we tried! The joke is on us.

I'll favor this if the money can be used to skip the golf course changes and instead use that land to build the much-needed approach to the Dumbarton Bridge.

Build a southern approach to the Dumbarton to make it easier for more cars to cross more easily?
NOT ON YOUR LIFE!

My understanding was that this was a tax on businesses, based on number of employees, not on individuals, to fund measures to mitigate traffic. Palo Alto votes should not have difficulty voting for such a tax.

It might be helpful if the legislation included incentives (reduced tax rates) for businesses that encourage their employees to take public transportation, bike, walk, or carpool. Stanford does an excellent job with its commute club, Caltrain and bus passes for employees and grad students.

If it's up early on the agenda, just get thru it quickly, mayor, limit discussion, so it can be killed quickly, and then move on to the more important issues, and there are quite a few, as you well know. Thanks!

"Stanford does an excellent job with its commute club, Caltrain and bus passes for employees and grad students."

Stanford simply (cynically?) kicks its employees'cars off campus by severely limiting the available parking spaces and charging huge fees for them. Many Stanford employees cope my driving to Palo Alto, parking for free on residential streets, and walking to the Marguerite buses. Eventually Stanford will need to run those buses deep into Crescent Park, Professorville, Old Palo Alto, Midtown, and beyond to round up its workforce.

"Stanford simply (cynically?) kicks its employees'cars off campus by severely limiting the available parking spaces and charging huge fees for them."

Perhaps you would find a little bit of research to be helpful:

Web Link

Stanford, like Cal, discourages faculty, staff, and grad students from driving to campus by severely limiting and charging a premium for parking. Stanford (unlike Cal) goes one step further by making alternative transportation options more palatable by i.e. providing free CalTrain and bus passes. IMO this is a responsible and ecologically sound approach that larger Palo Alto businesses would be wise to emulate.

Revenue from the Stanford parking fees also pays for all the parking structures, the bike paths and the Marguerite Shuttle which serves a much larger community than just Stanford.

"Free" parking is an illusion. Any scarce resource which is free will be mis-allocated and the price will be the time and effort to find a parking space - or not as the case may well be.

Palo Alto would be wise to follow Stanford's lead from over 40 years ago.

Stanford continues to grow and grow, without limit.
They advertise for patients with full page ads in several newspapers, and on the radio on KQED.FM, and on tv Channel 4 and on Channel 9.
Those are just the places I happen to see. Probably much more advertising than that. Millions of dollars advertising for new patients, then they come to the city council displaying sick babies, and cry, we need more space. Professional showbiz.
Something very dishonest about that scenario.

"then they come to the city council displaying sick babies, and cry, we need more space."

And would you rather have the babies die????

How incredibly fortunate we are to have a world class medical facility within minutes of where we live.

Please consider the alternative.

I recently had cause to use the Stanford ER facilities. I was pretty shocked that the norm appeared to be patients on gurneys sitting in a corridor not just waiting for treatment but being treated by physicians. I say it again, this was in the corridor, both sides of the corridor, just leaving a narrow path in the middle for people and equipment to pass. From what I overheard, there were also tents outside the ER facility taking up the slack.

As a result of a medical emergency that occurred within a 5 mile radius, this is the first class facilities I witnessed. It is obvious to me that Stanford can't cope with the population expansion in the area. I am now very much in favor of any increase in size and other improvements to the hospital because they seem to be totally inadequate for the size of the area it covers - from the point of view of their regular hospital services.

[Portion removed.]

Some world class hospital. DO NOT confuse Stanford Hospital, which sucks at patient care, with Packard, which IS a world class children's hospital. Even my daughter, when she had her first child, was SHOCKED by the drop inn care quality between Packard, where she gave birth, and Stanford, where she received aftercare.

[Portion removed.]

Re Stanford parking, I did the research personally, watching parking lot after parking lot disappear under the ever-metastasizing Stanford Edifice Complex, the institution of the A B C price/privilege parking heirarchy, and the acquisition of the original Marguerite bus, followed by the second, then a third, then a memo to staff advising them to utilize the new free onto-campus shuttle buses instead of parking on campus (hint hint).

The link provided was to a 284 page study that led to Stanford's current policies:

"Recommended Parking and Transportation Policies
for Stanford University"

Tons of research was involved in and cited in the report.

Why are you so resistant to facts?

"The link provided was to a 284 page study that led to Stanford's current policies:"

No, it is to a site that invites me to install an unknown piece of software, in the classic phishing site manner. [Portion removed.]

You accessed the wrong site.

Here is what is at the link that I provided:

Peter Carpenter wants to share the file Recommended Parking and Transportation Policies for StanFord University_p284.pdf with you.


Post your email and I will send you the file.

"You accessed the wrong site."

It's the site reached by tapping your link. So...

"Post your email and I will send you the file."

Uu-uh. Email attachments are an infamous malware entry route. Besides, what could the report say that those of us actually experiencing the process right on campus did not see with our own eyes? Rationalizations, perhaps, but who needs those?

From your snarky response, Mr Carpenter, it is apparent that you missed the point of my message.

My message pointed out the MILLIONS of dollars the hospital is spending on ADVERTISING not on health care. Perhaps fewer babies would die if those millions were spent on reducing the cost of medical care, not on full page ads in the newspapers and expensive ads on TV and radio.

From the huge amount of money spent on advertising over a long period of time I infer that the hospital has underutilized space. Or underutilized staff.

Whatever the reason, they have huge sums to spend, NOT on patient care.

Another real possibility could be that they are keeping the media in their good graces, preemptively muting any criticism of their unending expansion plans. This suggestion is not out of line given their history of manipulation.
You may recall they planted their PR head into our Planning Department. He was hired to be a Manager by then Planning Director Steve Emslie. The scandal was quite public.

Not to mention they hired a former Palo Alto Mayor/lawyer to head their development department. They have a history of aggressive manipulation. Not an admirable record.

"My message pointed out the MILLIONS of dollars the hospital is spending on ADVERTISING not on health care."

Interesting assertion - do you have any facts to back it up?

" Besides, what could the report say that those of us actually experiencing the process right on campus did not see with our own eyes? Rationalizations, perhaps, but who needs those?"

I can lead either end of the horse to water but cannot make it eat or drink or..?

Here is a Stanford daily link to the report IF anyone is interested in the facts regarding how and why Stanford dramatically changed its approach to parking and transportation over 40 years ago:

Web Link

For those with a fear of links here is a summary of the 1975! Stanford report:

"SUMMARY
Based upon a review of prior Stanford studies on parking and transportation, a series of eight public meetings throoghout the Stanford community, a survey of current parking and transportation practices at more than 46 universities in the United States and Canada, and a survey of current practices, values, and preferences of a randomly selected sample of the campus community, this report has been prepared to recommend new parking and transportation policies for Stanford University. The report represents one individual's specific recommendations; the endorsement of various constituent groups and/or committees was intentionally not solicited prior to its submission. Given the broad constituency input that took place during the preparation of the report, I hope the recommendations will be found acceptable in large part by the community. The report recommends: 1. That Stanford establish a parking and transportation policy giving first priority in planning, design, regulations, and expenditures to facilitation of pedestrian and bicycle travel; second priority to group transit; and the lowest priority to private motor vehicle travel. 2. The establishment of a parking and transportation trust fund to utilize all parking revenues for the improvement of facilities for all modes of transportation, with preferences to expenditures and support of nonautomobile modes. 3. Mandatory registration of all vehicles at no charge. 4. That the campus be divided into parking
zones: a Free Zone, a Residence Zone, an Academic Zone, and a Vehicle Exclusion Zone. 5. Vehicle registration alone is required for use of the Free Zone. 6. Parking in the Residence and Academic Zones would involve an annual fee and a parking permit. 7. Priority for applying for parking stickers for the Academic Zone descends from faculty to staff to students. 8. That all visitor parking be paid for at the time of use by meters or in paid lots. 9. That responsibility for administering the parking and transportation system be assigned to the Vice-President for Business and Finance. 10. That day-to-day operations be controlled fey the Director of Public Safety. 11. That a parking and transportation committee be appointed to serve as a consultative body for the implementation of the recommendations of this report and the continued refinement and improvement of the system. 12. That an aggressive program be undertaken to plan and develop alternative modes of transportation for the campus, primarily for intra-campus circulation, utilizing the resources of the parking and transportation funds. "

For an estimate of the medical advertising budget I suggest you count the number of full page advertisements in a weekly paper, and multiply by the cost of a full page ad. Then multiply by about 40 or 50 weeks. That should give you a rough idea about ONE set of ads.
Then do the same for the Daily.
Call Channel 4 for the cost of a TV ad in prime time, daily.
That should give you a rough estimate of the lowest dollar amount they spend on advertising, not patient care.
If you don't read the newspapers, or these calculations are too complicated for you, sorry I can't help. They do require imagination and ability to estimate, which are perhaps too sophisticated for someone who only believes in URLs.

You did not respond to the substantive assertions in my message. I do have URLs for them.

"I can lead either end of the horse to water but cannot make it eat or drink or..?"

OK, you can't work with horses. Ain't that a real crupper. Don't move to Woodside.

But let's stick to the thread topic. Stanford did what it did about on-campus parking knowing full well what it was doing. No amount of verbiage or malware can change that. I was there, you know.