[Vision2020] Customers Need Parking

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (July 30, 2009) Moscow-Pullman Daily News with special
thanks to Tom Bode.

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Customers need parking

On July 6, the Moscow City Council passed a motion to reduce the price of
parking permits in the Jackson Street parking lots to $75 per year
($6.25/month or 21 cents/day).

The chief reason given for inexpensive permits is to get employees and
owners off of Main Street and into the Jackson Street lots. I believe the
effect of selling cheap permits will put many cars in these lots that will
sit there all day. In fact, this is what your City Council desires. Either
the council didn't think through, or just doesn't care, that the effect of
this reduces the customer's opportunity to find a parking space. If spaces
aren't turning over through the day, how will customers of the downtown
find parking?

I was told this idea of cheap parking permits came from Moscow Chamber of
Commerce director Steven Hacker. I am shocked that the chamber would push
an idea that limits the downtown customers' opportunity to find parking,
so that the employees and owners can park in prime parking spaces. I was
taught in every aspect of my business education to put the customers
first.

In January 1978, Mayor Mann accepted a check from downtown businesses to
pay off the balance of the debt on the Jackson Street lots. The City
Council passed a resolution in which they agreed to keep the Jackson
Street lots for downtown customers.

The current council, many of who claim to be pro-business, has now
deviated 180 degrees from that agreement, by encouraging employees to park
in those lots.

If you find over the next year you are having trouble finding a space to
park in the Jackson Street lots, make sure you let the mayor, her staff,
the council and the chamber know how you feel about it.

Thomas Bode, Moscow

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Concerning the Jackson Street "Park it and Forget it" parking lot . . .

The fall semester for UI students, as well as NSA students, should prove
very interesting and, more importanly, convenient.

A parking space may cost a student only 21 cents per day. How much is the
loss of that same parking space costing Main Street proprietors?

Just another example of Moscow's pro-business city council.

I guess we can always reopen Moscow's old livery stable at First and Main.

http://www.tomandrodna.com/Photos/1800s_FirstMain_Stable.jpg

Seeya round town, Moscow

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown