Parking Bump
By floor9 on Jun 6, 2006 in Downtown, Rant
I’m repeating this topic because I’ve gotten a lot of feedback on it, both here and in person: Downtown Harrisburg’s parking is, for the moment, crap. Between the removal of the State Street parking spaces, the opening of The Quarter, and the opening of that Diner place, our parking has pretty much completely imploded upon itself.
This past Saturday was the worst yet. I spent 40 minutes circling downtown looking for a spot. To make matters worse, there was a checkpoint — which I fully support — set up at Front & Paxton around 9:30. For reasons unknown, you could not turn left onto Paxton or that side alley, so once you got to that point you were either forced to get on 83 or circle all the way down to PennDOT. The result? A single pass took ten minutes.
The decision to destroy a few dozen parking spaces on the eve of new venues opening downtown was colossally stupid. People like myself (who work downtown) are going to be downtown no matter what. We have to be there; we have to park. But everyone else — the overwhelming majority — do NOT have to be there. They do NOT have to fight for parking. They do NOT have to put up with our garages. They do NOT have to circle downtown for 20 minutes.
And odds are, they won’t.
They may stick around if they’re meeting friends or if they’ve already made plans to come downtown. They may even come back next weekend, and maybe even the weekend after that. But at some point, after spending the past weekend or three scouring for a spot, they’re going to take their nightlife dollars elsewhere. As much as it may feel as such, downtown is not the only source for nightlife in the area.
Granted, we have parking garages. The Second Street garage (which for some ridiculous reason is called the River Street garage) has been pretty full lately, but hasn’t yet hit capacity. The problem with the garages is their overnight rates. God help you if you haven’t gotten out of there by 8am. I have been told from very credible sources that the Harrisburg Parking Authority is getting into the mortgage business so that they can issue equity loans so customers can pay their way out of the garages.
The final icing on the cake is the seemingly increased frequency of spot closures on the weekend. It seems that, increasingly, we randomly have large swaths of parking spaces bagged off. As if parking wasn’t tight enough, now we’re squeezing off another dozen or so spaces.
Downtown has a lot of development potential. Our redevelopment has been, for the most part, great so far. We’ve got the nightlife down, and now it’s time to start bringing in retail and housing development. But that simply won’t happen (or at least won’t thrive) without better parking management.
Free parking is the way of the past in Harrisburg. Even when State St. and other projects are done, there will never, ever be close to enough on-street parking to meet the demand. This is the case in any city that is drawing in lots of outsiders. I see no solution to the problem, especially if the business development in the area continues. Visitors driving into the city should be prepared to park, just like most other cities. It is now a given.
by the way, do you have an RSS feed? I can’t seem to find it.
Josh | Jun 7, 2006 | Reply
It all comes down to having good public transit and this is even more proof that HBG needs more BADLY. Here in Philly it is fairly easy to get into the city and not worry about driving if you so desire and HBG needs to consider the same. This parking crunch is only going to get worse…
Dave | Jun 7, 2006 | Reply
Josh: There’s a feed located at floor-9.com/feed. I just realized I removed that from the sidebar at some point - thanks for pointing it out.
I agree the parking will continue to be a problem. To what extent it will be is the question. Do we use the parking crunch as a justification for tearing up State? Or do we hang on to what parking we have because we so desperately need it? I’m all for progress, but this seems to be a step backwards.
Mass transit is non-existent in Harrisburg. When does our bus service stop, 6? We’ve got a light rail on the horizon, and that’s a good start. If we lay the infrastructure for mass transit systems now, we’ll be in far better shape in the coming decades than if we wait until we’re bigger.
floor-9 | Jun 7, 2006 | Reply
Now I know I am going to sound like a huge nerd here (lol) but the rail system, CorridorONE, is going to be heavy rail and not light rail. This makes a big difference because heavy rail is usually only used for peak commuter times and/or goes further between stops. I point this out because it is very doubtful you will be able to ride this at 11:00 p.m. to go from, let’s say City Island to DT.
Not to mention the Cumberland County Commissioners [morons] decided to vote down the rail plan during the first phase so it will be 2010 at the very least until the West Shore is serviced. IF (and that is a really big if there) this rail could be used for the barhoppers, it isn’t even going to service a large chunk of them that are coming from the West Shore…
My advice would be for the city to open up the Island to cheap parking on the weekends and run a few shuttles back and forth. If they didn’t want the headache then they could contract it out or a business could rent the Island…there are many options, none of which I am sure will be used…
…yet another opportunity for progression down the drain…
Dave | Jun 7, 2006 | Reply
The bags on the meters makes me want to rip the parking authority’s heads off. There is no discernable reason for bagging these meters - no event - no security reason, none. Even if I drove down 3rd to see every space taken, that is still way better than seeing 20 spaces with bags and the possibility for some poor soul to find a place to park. Oh, we were told State Street would take 3 months to complete. This was in early March. Uh, March [1] April [2] May [3]…..have you seen what State Street looks like recently?!?!? That looks like July to me, if we are lucky. Then they can start the 2nd portion by Front street. Won’t that be nice? Also, I go to mass at St. Pat’s and on Sunday’s it is a crying shame to see older folks hobbling around State street trying to get into freaking church!!!!! Way to go Steve. Between this and the
“Wild West” artifacts, you really got me wondering. Sorry for the rant. I love floor-9. That is all………………….
Rich | Jun 7, 2006 | Reply
just a heads up, the mars towing crew was in full effect last night at the private parking lot next to the g-man. they had four tow trucks working simultaneously, it was NASTY. the new owners of the lot are serious, you are better off parking illegally somewhere else…
cosby | Jun 10, 2006 | Reply
the city of harrisburg wants YOU to drive home drunk. dont park anywhere overnite!
burgi | Jun 10, 2006 | Reply
i still vote for some type of transportation system from City Island. i know i’m nuts, but imagine a monorail that went from the Farmshow to Wormlysburg, stopping at Strawberry Sqaure, 2nd street & the like. Look at your parking options then. The farm show has how many spaces? City Island has how many spaces? yeah yeah, we’re talking a multimillion dollar project, but you want public transportation (without traffic problems) you’ve got it.
mak | Jun 10, 2006 | Reply
The Cumberland County people all deserve some slapping around over CorridorONE. Thanks, guys — you had ten years to do your homework. At some point, we’ll need rail service in this area (beyond what Amtrak offers). Why not start now? Even if it only means we’ve got a light-rail shuttle between City Island, Second & Locust (”The Spot Stop!”), Strawberry Square, and Colonial Park, I’m all for it. Grant money was in place; research was done; the go-ahead was given. Now we’re derailed.
There’s no excuse for the parking bags. They often seem to come out at the worst possible times, too; why are spots that are open all day bagged around 9?
Couldn’t have said it better myself, burgi. Drive home drunk or pay $50 to un-park your car in the morning. It’s like a Designated Driver Fine.
floor-9 | Jun 10, 2006 | Reply
i’m not 100% sure this is accurate, but i am pretty sure you can pay the city to have specific spots bagged for a day. i know i worked for a company on second that had two spots bagged on a thursday afternoon (don’t ask why, it was a ridiculous marketing scheme). i’d like to point out that a lot of spaces, especially around the crowne plaza, seemed to be bagged nearly all the time. i wonder if there is something to that…
also, i’ve thought about buying a real boot and putting it on my own car when i park downtown, then just removing it myself when i want to leave. for some dumb reason, i think this could work…
cosby | Jun 11, 2006 | Reply