Can Ms. Much tell us what other cities have banned parking on El Camino? Menlo Park is unique in that it has both small retail (that is not strip mall with frontage parking on the property) and streets that lead into residential neighborhoods.

Can Ms. Much identify where one or more parking structures could be built and what the source of funding might be. There are small businesses on ECR that range from a clock shop, a fix it shop to Guy plumbing. Would banning parking not be the death of these businesses?

Never mind the businesses, eliminating parking will turn Menlo Park's ECR into even more of a traffic sewer than it already is. It is well known among urban planners that parking creates an important buffer between pedestrians on sidewalks and traffic. As a pedestrian, there is a real and huge difference between walking on a sidewalk with traffic whizzing by just a few feet away from your elbow vs. on a sidewalk with a parking strip and parked cars separating you from cars, trucks and buses whizzing by.

The more desirable, livable, walkable, human-scaled downtown will require that parking remains. Oh, yeah, and the shops will also do much better -- and not necessarily because you can park there, but because the sidewalks and the humans who might wish to use them will remain buffered from traffic.

The mindset of catering to the auto and to focus on moving as many cars as fast as possible is sooooo yesterday. Ever notice that the nicest, most desirable places to actually _be_ have (s)low speed limits, are often congested and nearly impossible to find parking in?

Yeah, yeah and there will always be the crotchety motorist types who demand free parking and no tickets or time limits who will with a straight face ironically complain that this or that place is getting so damn crowded that nobody will go there anymore (or least not them)!

Reality Check:

You're the kind of City Council Member Menlo Park needs. Think about running. In addition to your wise thoughts, sales tax from retail is exactly what the city needs and especially now in these economic times. Thank you for your contribution to this topic.

Ms. Much - I have had to drive along El Camino to the north and to the south, and have found that Menlo Park is no worse than Redwood City and Palo Alto. In fact, Menlo Park is better than the others most of the time except during rush hour. So I try to avoid rush hour and I try to avoid driving. Perhaps you should do the same. The dense development along El Camino in Redwood City has made it remarkably worse. We should remember this when completing our city's plans.