Parking program for district employees

<< Back to archives | Thursday, July 19, 2007

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You can also download an easy to print PDF file of the map.

Aug 8 update - the map shown is the Aug 1 corrected version, showing the no parking area on north 11th Street.

A new effort is being made to improve the parking for customers of our historic district shops and restaurants.  Ray Dunn, one of the owners of the Pacific Chef on 11th, has taken a survey with merchants and has given objective evidence to what we all sort of knew;  employees park on the core streets where our customers want to park.  Ray, who has decades of retail experience, is convinced that if parking meters - or even parking signs limiting parking times -  are installed on our streets that it will seriously hurt commerce for all.  And once in, they will never be taken out.

Ray has two suggestions at this time.
1) All employees - this includes business owners - not park in the core streets.  Park a block away from work and walk the block.  Right now the grey streets on the map - click it for a larger version - are filled with employees parking in front of a shop not their own.  One suggestion is to add grey to 11th north of Mill - and that will probably be done.  This is a start.
2) We need to market Fairhaven as a place with free unlimited parking but with the need to walk a block or two though still much shorter and pleasant a walk than across a mall parking lot.

We need to appeal to all who work in the core to do what is the right thing to do - and do it for the benefit of all.  If not and if we get meters then all will suffer.  Ray asks why we should punish our customers with fees when the problem is of our own making.  Yes, there are many other factors, but these are the main factors.  Yes, when construction is done then some spaces will open up but we still need a real program to keep the best parking spaces for customers. 

At New Location - 1307 11th

Across street from Skylarks. More seating, including outside tables. Now open for lunch every day except Mondays.

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