How to pay for parking

I live near downtown Naperville and have always been able to find a parking spot during when out with family and/or friends. What I still struggle with is finding a parking spot at the downtown Metra station. It would be nice if City Council would help me get to work so I can EARN my money, instead of focusing on how to make it easier for me to SPEND my money. How quickly we forget the recent public transportation funding issues that would have made a mess for a lot or people on a daily basis, not just on their weekly trips to Jimmy's.

Parking downtown can be a challenge, but I have never left downtown for lack of a parking spot. I have always been able to find a spot and as a last resort I would valet my car, but I haven’t had to do that (yet). So while I think parking is an issue the city council needed to address, I think three new decks and 1,000 new spots is a bit of a knee-jerk over-reaction.

First, what to do. I do not support the current deck planned for the Nichols library lot. I could support a two-story deck there with one being under ground. This would have minimal impact on the library while expanding parking for the library and the park district buildings nearby.

I understand that the new development next to the Van Buren garage will include parking connected to the current garage. I think this is wise, but question the height of the new development. The developer kept asking for an extreme height and was denied by the city more than once. The project was finally approved, but the Sun never stated what height the city agreed to. Does anyone know how high this will be and how much the developer will pay towards the parking deck addition?

The Chicago Ave. garage is a joke. I’ve never seen a smaller garage in which you can’t drive from one level to another. Blow it up, start over, and build this garage smarter and larger. It won’t look so tall now next to the NCC fine arts center which towers over it anyways.

Speaking of the fine arts center, I seem to recall they’re going to have to pay some portion of ticket prices for parking, but how much? This could easily be increased with a Chicago-style entertainment tax on tickets. I think allowing this huge center to be built without further addressing the parking situation was irresponsible of the city council.

So, how to pay? I don’t know what the best approach should be, but I think a food and beverage tax exempts the retail stores and targets only one section of downtown merchants. Is it possible to do a downtown general sales tax instead? This may not be legally feasible. I really don’t know.

However, I'm tired of the council nickel and diming us to death. If they’re going to increase the downtown food and beverage taxes by 1.5%, I think they should consider scaling back the 1% Culture Fund food and beverage tax to 0.5% so the total impact would be a net 1% increase.

Of course, this could cause problems with the Carillon funding, but that was the council’s boondoggle and they should find an alternate solution to that issue. Sorry, I guess that probably belongs on another thread.

T.B.

I go downtown nearly every day. There is no parking problem whatsoever except sometimes on Friday and Saturday during dinner time. That is it!

So we are suppose to build 3 new parking garages solely for 4 hours of restaurant time. That is it! How ridiculous!

If these are to be built, no money should come from property owners. The restaurants that want this parking for those few hours on Friday and Saturday need to pay for it exclusivley. It may take a 10 or 20% sales tax increase to accomplish this. We as taxpayers should not be subsidizing private and profitable business. Let us smell the coffee! Our city council members really seem dense at times.

While I can tolerate 2 of the 3 garages if the restaurants pay for them, I can never tolerate a 3rd parking garage by beautiful Nicolas Library. That area is so beautiful, serene, and residential. Please don't destroy that area and make it commercial. It would look so UGLY!

Thanks!!!

PS. If no additional parking is built the restaurants will survive. Their customers will be forced to come a little earlier or a little later. No big deal! They don't all have to show up between 6-8pm on Friday and Saturday. In other towns, this problem is taken care of by restaurants giving slight discounts right before and after the rush hour to spread the patrons out and alleviate any parking problems. That in my opinion is the solution and it will only cost restaurants a few coupons and discounts instead of taxpayers the bulk of this 32 million bucks. It seems like the council members elected thru connections have no brilliance or insight into anything. Sorry to say that but it appears true!!

MR wrote:

"What I still struggle with is finding a parking spot at the downtown Metra station. It would be nice if City Council would help me get to work so I can EARN my money, instead of focusing on how to make it easier for me to SPEND my money."

IF THE CITY COUNCIL WOULD JUST LISTEN TO THIS LOGIC WE WOULD ALL BE BETTER OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Councilman Bob claims to be the only commuter on the council however, in my opinion he appears to be very silent on the commuter parking issue.

To "Confused in Naperville" and others: This is off topic but I just want to clarify something. "Confused" posted a comment on the Furstenau thread and then said he wished The Sun hadn't taken that thread down. Again, to clarify: we haven't taken it down. All you have to do is go to the home page and click on the blog, whatever the topic. That brings you to "Naperville Potluck." On the right hand side you'll see categories. In the case of "Confused," for example, you look at the categories and for Furstenau or the city's response, you then click on "City Council" and, voila, the thread will appear. We never take them down. They just can't all fit on one page. All the threads are there and they're easy to find. I would hope a blogger or two gets back to me as a means of telling me that you all understand this. Thanks.

Here we go again, more tax and spend.
If people want to drive downtown and park, let them pay for it!!

Why are our elected officials so stupid?

This boneheaded proposal assumes that everyone that drives downtown goes there to EAT!!! How ridiculous.

When every citizen is taxed at 100%, I wonder if these idiots will be happy then?

Make the garages PAY garages! Is that too hard to understand?

Moderator Jim Lynch,
I think if a thread is hot it needs to stay on the Main Page if you want it to continue to be acivie with bloggers continuing to exchange their thoughts and ideas

I see Confused's point and a lady who had suggested how to deal with slow or the dead blogs. You currently have a thread/blog with one hit in 8 days and it is occupying wasteful space on the Main Page like the other 3 you correctly deleted. By not deleting this dead blog, "Who did you like in local elections?" you ended up losing a very powerful blog about the Ponds of Hobson West that had 7 hits earlier today before you deleted it from the Main Page. So here is a thread that may get 15 to 20 hits a day being deleted becasue a blog that is getting one hit in 8 days is occupying unnecessary space. Makes no sense to me!!!

Yes, I do know how to find old blogs that are archived. Once you archive them off the front page, they slow down and die in a day or two. Old threads in the Archives are great for research and reference but terrible for active blogging or posting.

Confused was right that the Napergatians would never find out what Taxpayer was saying about the campaign contributions since the blog was deleted off the Main Page.

One suggestion I have is just wrtie a short introduction with a link to a longer one on the Main Page. This may enable you to have 20 threads on the Main Page instead of 10.

And as Maryann or some gal said, you need to delete the duds as soon as possible. You deleted 3 but she wrote you about the 4th dud with only one post in 8 days and you either ignored her or overlooked her post.

The Ponds Issue was just getting hot. You need to bring it back to the front page. There is a deadline of Jan 31, 2008. People from SpringGate were advising PondsGate people what needs to be done. All you have to do is watch and see how any blog removed from the MAIN page will die quickly. So only let the ones die that you want to die. Not the very actives ones that I assume you don't want to die and measure how successful you have been with your selections.

No one is looking at these issues as you are trying to cover your failures or bad choices. People just want to blog on hot topcis where other bloggers are bloggin and active and where they can inter-relate.

Let me know if anyone has blogged on an October or November thread. It will be almost no one or insignificant!

Anyway those are my 2 cents worth! I do understand if you have to delete the Furstenau thread as it was almost getting like beating a dead horse.

But the Ponds of Hobson West Gate was just getting hotter and hotter with mysteries such as who was the other council man who voted against the project that no one answered with certainty and it suddenly disappears. In my opinion that was a MAJOR MISTAKE.

Anyway I hope in the future you don't feel bad about deleting your 1 post threads after say 2 days. I think that would be the practical choice to make. No one is going to be activley blogging on archives! The Main PAGE is the Action PAGE!!!

PS. I also noticed the Napergate thread was removed when it suddenly got a second wind and moved from 23 to 33 in 2 days. Since there is so much discussion about Napergate, maybe you could put a second Napergate thread with a different ad such as the Napergate XXXVI that Ameena is pointing out has similarities to Ponds of Hobson West which she or Mr. Randall coined PondGate.
This one may also have information about the 4 Flip Flop Votes that took place on Spring Green that no one seemed to be aware of until her post this morning on the PondGate thread. We all thought there had only been 2 flip flops on Spring Green. So this breaking news from Ameena that could have helped PondsGate residents with some information was suddenly relegated to the archives which most people can never see.

I sincerely hope you can at least bring the Ponds of Hobson West back on the Main Page as it is currently very active with relevant information to be learned from.

Jenny,

I'll field this one for Jim. Your request is granted. Eventually, though, threads are going to have to move off the home page. The District 203 thread continues to be very active and it's been off the home page for a while. The Furstenau threads, too.

And a lot of the discussion on the Ponds of Hobson West thread has nothing to do with the Ponds of Hobson West! I think you'll find the active discussions we all enjoy are going to continue regardless of what the topic of the thread is.

I could see a lot of the participants in the Hobson West thread continuing their dialogue in the "All Eyes on 75th Street" post. It's a similar topic.

The downtown parking garages are for the exclusive benefit of the downtown merchants and no property taxes should be used.

I understand the argument about the value of a vibrant downtown. (It's vibrant now, but that is beside the point.) I've asked the council before and can get no answer to this question: How much sales tax revenue is generated in the area served by the parking decks? We are going to spend $40 million dollars. How much additional sales tax revenue are we going to collect as a result? We'll need $40 billion in additional taxable sales revenue to cover the cost at 1%. Even spread over 20 years, is it likely?

It's seems like the basic question -- either the investment has a real payback or it is a real cost -- I would hope our staff has run the numbers, and I wish they would share them.

I am still confused by the council's refusal to even consider paid parking (meters, deck slots, etc.) See WSJ article, below:

The Parking Fix
Free-market economists are overhauling a frustration of American life -- and erasing what may be one of the last great urban bargains.
By CONOR DOUGHERTY
February 3, 2007; Page P1

Redwood City, in the heart of California's Silicon Valley, faced a vexing problem last year. During the busy lunch hour, downtown was gridlocked, with cars orbiting the block in search of one of the few prime parking spots, while just a half block away, a four-level garage was never full. So the city is trying something new: installing meters that charge more for the best spots.

As anyone who has ever circled the block for a marginally better spot knows, parking is an American obsession. It occasionally boils over into rage, or worse. Since the parking meter was first introduced 70 years ago, in Oklahoma City, the field has been dominated by two simple maxims: Cities can never have too much parking, and it can never be cheap enough.

Now a small but vocal band of economists, city planners and entrepreneurs is shaking that up, promoting ideas like free-market pricing at meters and letting developers, rather than the cities, dictate the supply of off-street parking. Seattle is doing away with free street parking in a neighborhood just north of downtown. London has meters that go as high as $10 an hour, while San Francisco has been trying out a system that monitors usage in real time, allowing the city to price spots to match demand. (A recent tally there showed that one meter near AT&T Park brings in around $4,500 a year, while another meter about a mile away takes in less than $10.) Gainesville, Fla., has capped the number of parking spots that can be added to new buildings; Cambridge, Mass., works with companies to reduce off-street parking.

Economists have long made the case that the solution to the parking crunch many cities face lies not in more free or cheap parking but in higher prices. The idea is that higher prices result in a greater churn -- and get more people on buses and subways -- which leads to more open spaces. But this notion has often run up against city planners and retailers arguing that cheap and plentiful parking results in more commerce and, thus, higher sales taxes and a vibrant economy.

Now, in places like Redwood City, some officials are finally listening. One reason is that after decades of losing people to the suburbs, many city centers are swelling again. Many of these new residents are bringing cars with them, creating the kind of traffic that makes them yearn for the suburbs again.

One of the most influential of the parking gurus is Donald Shoup, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles who commutes on a bicycle. Since the publication in 2005 of Mr. Shoup's "The High Cost of Free Parking," he has become something of a celebrity at academic gatherings and parking-industry meetings. Lines form at his book signings. "He's a parking rock star," says Paul White, of Transportation Alternatives, a New York group that advocates for pedestrians and bicycles.

Mr. Shoup charges as much as $5,000 for speaking engagements, accuses cities of "mismanagement of the worst sort" and labels some transportation engineers "charlatans" for their misguided parking policies. He has no shortage of invitations. "A lot of people thought I was nuts until the book came out," says the 68-year-old professor, who has a fondness for tweed coats and has owned a total of three cars over his lifetime.

Mr. Shoup has popularized what might be called the "85% rule": Cities, he says, should charge whatever rates lead to about 85% of the spots being filled up at any given time, moving rates up or down as demand fluctuates. The 85% target now serves as a policy guideline for cities including Portland, Ore., and Anchorage, Alaska.

In Portland, bus ridership to its Lloyd District, a shopping area and home to the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers, has increased to 33% of traffic, from 10% a decade ago. One reason: Parking prices have been raised to about 75 cents an hour from free, nudging store and office employees onto the bus.

Dan Zack, downtown development coordinator for Redwood City, has bought in. A few years ago, his boss presented him with a problem. "He said, 'We're adding a million visitors every year, but only 600 new parking spots -- make it work,' " Mr. Zack recalls. After visiting neighboring cities and reading books like "The Dimensions of Parking," Mr. Zack was handed an article by Mr. Shoup.

The city recently raised rates to 75 cents for some prime downtown spots that had been free, and ditched its one-hour time limits, so cars can prepay for as long as they'd like. The move has helped steer more cars to underutilized parking garages away from the main drag.

In the past, Cheryl Angeles has had to jump up in the middle of a coloring treatment, foil in her hair and a black-plastic cape around her neck, to pop more quarters into the meter. Twice the self-storage company regional manager got $25 parking tickets when she didn't make it in time. Now that the time limits have been removed, she can pay once and return when the appointment is over.

The new market-based approach to parking isn't being rolled out everywhere. Many towns and cities still have lower-density development, and parking in those places is likely to remain free until there's a shortage. Also, the most dramatic parking changes are largely confined to commercial areas -- in residential neighborhoods, parking continues to be mostly free and unrestricted.

But the idea has plenty of detractors, starting with those who say the price increases fall disproportionately on people for whom they are a hardship. Also, many market-based plans eliminate minimum parking requirements for developers, which critics say gives developers a profit boost and creates a parking crunch down the line. And, some merchants remain convinced that free or subsidized parking is a necessary ingredient to a thriving shopping district. And, of course, people at any income level rarely welcome paying for something they're used to getting for nothing.

"It's just frustrating that they keep taking free parking away," says Terry Peterson, a grants and contracts administrator at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Ms. Peterson has a 15-minute commute to her office, where she parks in one of the area's free spots.

In spring, the city plans to put in new meters that will cost around $7 a day on average, the result of a recent study that found that most on-street parking in the neighborhood has an occupancy rate of at least 90%. She says she'll probably end up parking at a private lot, which runs about $1,800 a year.

San Francisco, perhaps more than any other city, shows how radically some cities are rethinking their parking. The city is one of the toughest places to find a meter spot in all of America, and there have been a spate of attacks by angry drivers, against parking enforcement officers. One block near the popular Fisherman's Wharf has average stays of four hours -- even though there's a two-hour time limit -- and some spots are filled for days at a time.

Recently, the city hired a company to lay hundreds of 4-inch-by-4-inch sensors along the streets in some areas. The sensors, which resemble reflectors, have recorded some 250,000 "parking events" across 200 parking spots. City planners can now tell you which spots are occupied the longest and how traffic flow affects parking supplies.

If the sensors get a wider rollout, the city has floated a number of ideas. When there's a Giants baseball game at AT&T Park, the city could temporarily charge about the same as private lots near the stadium. The ground sensors are also connected to the Internet wirelessly, which creates the possibility that parking enforcement officers equipped with PDAs could get real-time information on parking violations beamed to them. It also means consumers could get information on which parking spots are open.

About a month ago, the city also installed new kiosks that take credit cards as well as quarters, and boosted prices from a flat rate of $2 per hour to a four-hour rolling rate that starts at $3 and rises to $5, for a total of $15 for four hours. That's more than the day rate at many privately owned parking garages in the area. "We're pricing to match demand," says Tod Dykstra, chief executive of Streetline Networks, which installed the sensors.

For Leslie Howard, a yoga teacher who regularly parks in the area, her tab has grown to about $8 a day from $5. Yet parking spots remain elusive. "People are just eating it," says Ms. Howard.

Bob S -

While I agree that alternative revenue sources should be investigated as it relates to parking, I am one that hopes that parking remains "free". I am more than willing to pay an additinal tax IF it is reasonable and the money is spent wisely. I don't think the current plan is wise.

Also, could you get your point across without cutting and pasting an entire article into the thread?

T.B.

This is a great article and thank you for sharing. Please send to City Council. This puts the user fee in the correct place.
There was NO federal tax until 1913, the Federal government received all monies from user fees.

THIS is the American way!!

If you want to park, you PAY. We need to have parking meters and paid parking garages. Taxes at restaurants are like entitlement programs that never go away. These idiots will raise your taxes forever.

The other piece of the program needs to be this, once the 32 million is repaid, the taxes must END!

Thank you.

Sam Adams -

I'm just worried that parking meters won't produce the necesary revenue due to the need for either large technological expenditures or old-fashioned "meter maids". I would hate to add yet more city employees to the payroll.

T.B.

You guys are all crazy! We have plenty of parking in downtown! For a few hours during dinner time on Friday and Saturday, people just have to walk an extra block to find parking.

The problem is you are believing our city officials who are alway on the "take"!

These yoyos even want to put a parking structure by beautiful Nichols Library in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

We suddenly need 3 extra parking garages just like that because people have to walk an extra block or two! Walking is healthy and prolongs life!!!

How about as a compromise building the one on Van Buren and leave it at that for a while! Let us see if that will solve the problem before jumping to 2 and 3 in nearly the same year.

I believe some developer is profiting from this nonsense and possibly some city council members. This need for 3 GARAGES suddenly is NONSENSE!

If the Napergate Man was around, the city would never dare build 3 garages all nearly at once with taxpayer money while pretending it was coming from a 1% tax on businesses which is not enough to sweep the streets.

Come on you guys and gals! Smell the Java! Demand your council members provide studies by unbiased professionals before spending your tax money! Not by professionals connected to them or the Brestal Law Firm.

And please ask them to reverse their vote on that insane library garage. That is the most serene and tranquil part of Naperville.
Have you guys noticed the beautiful trees in the library parking lot. Have you noticed those very tall gorgeous trees on the easement of Jefferson St in front of the library? How dare the council take down such beautiful trees?

If I only had the money to run Napergate ADs, I would run them hourly. I am OUTRAGED! Sorry!

Sam & TB,

We already have the needed "meterpersons" as they currently wander the downtown area to give tickets.

Also, I had already sent this article to each councilperson.

By the by, when I aksed about the council's aversion to charged parking, their answer was very simple: we used to have pay for parking in the 70s, and the downtown was dying . we got rid of it, and the downtown picked up.

I told them I found this reasoning to be short on correlative data but high in anecdotal info!

I think the answer is a combo of things, but paid for parking s/b one of them. If you talk to the smaller biz owners you will find that these spedial assessments are crushing them (they don't have 2000 national stores to spread the cost!)

Anon -

I agree that the council's "cause anf affect" is severely flawed. I also agree that the special assessments are killing th small businesses.

That's exactly why my original post on this thread said we don't need 1,000 new spots and should increase the food and beverage tax by 1.5%.

How many people will that huge fine arts center hold? Anyone know?

To Real Anon -

Before your BP goes any higher, maybe read the previous posts and notice that some of us are not crazy and do not think the 1,000 new parking spots are necesary.

T.B.

Note from Ted Slowik, host:

The fine arts center will seat 600.

If I recall correctly, the new North Central College concert center will seat 605 people. Also, they were estimating that 50% of the use would be for community-related performances. Thus, a lot of parking required for those community events. People will not likely want to walk from the Van Buren/Benton Strret garage.

The college apparently agreed to $0.50 per ticket to go to the City for parking.

Obviously, to have torn down the adjoining parking structure first and improved it so that there are entrance/exit on both streets for all levels and to have made it larger to accommodate more vehicles would have been the wise thing to do before the concert center was completed.

Rod R -

I seem to recall that with the $0.50 per ticket parking fee for the Fine Arts Ctr, there was some stipulation regarding a rebuilding or remodling of the Chicago Ave parking structure--either the school would or would not help with that cost. Does that ring a bell or is my memory faulty? I can't recall what the school agreed to.

T.B.

How about investing in parking garages at the metra stations. If you want to improve the quality of life for the citizens of your city spend property tax there instead of downtown. The stress of racing to the train stations before 7 a.m. so that you can get a parking spot would be lessened and your citizens might live longer!

T.B.

I do not know one way or the other whether the college would or would not help make direct payment to redoing the parking structure.

I have heard two college spokesmen talk on this topic and neither mentioned this idea.

Sam,

It would actually take $4 billion---not $40 billion---to raise $40 million with a 1% tax. I imagine it would still take an awful long time for even $4 billion to be spent downtown, though.

Every other business must provide parking for their customers, whether in a mall or on a busy street. But somehow, downtown businesses have foisted this on city council who has decided to dump it on people who eat downtown. But instead of being included in the menu prices, it will be an add on like you get on airline tickets and hotel rooms. List prices mean nothing when taxes linger around 10%.

Why not make the downtown businesses pay for parking, just like they do in every other part of the city? With the exception of visitors to the library and the Riverwalk, the businesses are the one generating the traffic, and they should be paying for the parking. For that matter, even the library and Riverwalk visitors benefit the businesses, so a portion of that cost should fall on the businesses, too. Taxpayers, whether they eat downtown or not should not be footing the businesses' parking bill.

Fed up, I think the short answer to your question is that the businesses will just pass on the increased costs to their patrons, so the burden of paying for parking will be borne by the public no matter how you slice it.

John Q Public:

Thanks for catching my error, you are correct that it will take only $4 Billion dollars at 1% to cover the cost of parking. I will remind everyone, that is $4 billion in NEW revenue and I'll ask again, how much sales tax revenue is currently generated in downtown Naperville?

Actually, I understand that with the developer's stake in the Water Street deck, the City's cost is going to fall to an estimated $32 Million. That reduces the required new revenue to only 3.2 billion. Piece of cake -- that's only a little of $21,000 of additional spending per resident. Even over 20 years, that' still over $1,000 per year per resident. I know our family won't be increasing our spending by anything near that amount. Of course, we'll continue to get some support from out of towners.

My last negative point on this issue is this: If we add parking for say 1,000 cars, has anyone made plans for improving the streets to handle the extra traffic? Haven't heard anything about that aspect.

I still am not sure where the extra cars are going to come from to fill up this garage. I've never had a problem finding a parking spot, even on busy Friday nights. If the Chicago Ave garage is full I head over to the Van Buren garage and always find something there. It might take ten minutes to find a spot during peak hours, but is that worth spending millions of dollars and goofing up the library?

Can't you also park at City Hall after hours as well? Does ANYONE ever park there? This whole fiasco is really starting to make me wonder if someone on the council isn't going to be on the receiving end of a cash stuffed envelope from whatever contractor is responsible for the construction of the new garage.

But since the garage is being built, I agree with everyone saying local businesses should finance it. If I open a business on the outskirts of Naperville, can I depend on the city and residents of Naperville to whip me up a posh parking lot... or would providing parking for my customers be my responsibility as a business owner? The double standard the city has for the downtown area is getting expensive.

Great post Eli!

Unfortunately the Napergate Man retired but I bet you he would have found those stuffed envelopes. He seemed to be able to find anything unlike these days when no one can find anything.

And that beautiful library! Oh how beautiful and they want to goog it up. I had the same feelings. I love that library.

If that Napergate Man was still around I guarantee you he would have led his 3500 supporters into Council Chambers to save that library.

Thanks for that post to Ted asking him to reveal those ads. I loved reading about them. Do you have any more informaiton Eli about the Napergate ads or the Napergate Man.