Paying for parking? Telephone hotline? $53,000 to buy six parking meters? I don't think it's a "great thing". Sounds like a disingenuous way of putting a foot in the door of adding parking meters generally.

And adding staff. I suppose there will be complaints from people who failed to pay the increments for the time. This scale is too complex for some simple minds.

If retailers thought they were losing customers before, charging for parking will not solve the problem. If anything it will incentivize customers to visit other places where parking is still free. Downtown Menlo Park will become more like Redwood (Deadwood) City with this plan.

I recently received a parking ticket while dining out in Menlo Park. And now parking meters are being installed? I plan to eat out in Palo Alto instead.

Flynn -

I have to assume you haven't been to Redwood City lately! Try going down there on Friday night... but you may want to make a reservation for dinner and prepare to try to find a parking space.

I wasn't a fan of the city's redevelopment project but it has clearly delivered. It has a long way to go but that place is anything but dead.

This is irresponsible journalism. The headline implies that all parking in Menlo Park will require payment and that is clearly not the case. The meters are a creative solution for those individuals who want to park for longer than the free parking period and to do so at a significantly lower cost than getting a parking ticket.

Parking meters? You've got to be kidding! Great products, great service, and/or good value drive traffic into a store whether there is parking or not. Before Jeffrey's Hambergers (which has parking) there were three restaurants that opened then closed because nobody came. Good value, good products and comfortable dinning moved in and so did the M.P. crowd. Parking meters strike me as an expense for our city that we don't need. They will be an inconvenience for consumers, and an added deterrent to DT Menlo Park businesses. People will zoom by with their busy lives, see meters and go elsewhere (Stanford Shopping perhaps). Lulu's is great & has tons of customers w/NO parking. Let's focus our city funding on helping business owners fill real consumer needs with quality products at a good value. This will bring more results for the whole community.

I once worked in Menlo Park. We did the parking lot shuffle to avoid parking tickets. Talk about a hindrance to productivity! We would have gladly purchased a permit, but only a certain number were available. Ultimately, we did.

Since parking is free for a couple of hours, this will really only impact the people who work in the downtown area.

More importantly, it offers a legal alternative to parking for more than 2 hours, whether for work or an extended dinner. Menlo Park should have done this long ago.

I'm with Peter Carpenter on this one. The article is actually OK, but the headline is completely sensationalizing things. Let's look at the facts:

PARKING FOR THE FIRST TWO HOURS
Existing: Free
Proposed: Free
What's Changing: Nothing

PARKING FOR ANYTHING BEYOND TWO HOURS
Existing: 1) You go down to the Police Department and buy a half- or full-day pass 2) You take your chances and likely get a big ticket - either way, you *pay* now
Proposed: You go to one of two well-marked parking lots and buy exactly how many extra hours you want.
What's Changing: Frankly, it's getting more convenient- no schlepping to PD and having to buy more hours than you need.

Sandy et al, you really need to tone down the headline. Something like "Downtown Menlo Extended-Hour Parking to Get More Convenient, Affordable" would be more accurate.

There seems to be no reasonable oversight of our local government.

Instead of posting here, anonymously, come to the Planning Commission meeting in the council chambers tomorrow and say what you think. Joanna, we, the residents, are the people who must provide the "reasonable oversight." There is no god of all government who will smite our city staff for their mistakes. We alone can hold them accountable.

Thank you Mayor Cline and the City Council for moving forward on a plan to eliminate the downtown parking challenges, that we as business owners face everyday. Our clients will be very pleased that they will now have a choice as to how long they want to "Shop Menlo Park".

There is no "FREE" parking in Palo Alto so why is Menlo Park acting like a cry baby?

Yet another reason to not bother to shop in Menlo Park......Any opinion on this issue sought from the MP Chamber of Commerce....Probably not....The Chamber officials are too wrapped up in MP politics to worry about commerce.

Here are just some of the results of the totally misleading headline on this article - which should have read something like "Longer parking for a fee in Menlo Park":

"Yet another reason to not bother to shop in Menlo Park"


"There seems to be no reasonable oversight of our local government."

"Parking meters strike me as an expense for our city that we don't need. They will be an inconvenience for consumers, and an added deterrent to DT Menlo Park businesses."

"If retailers thought they were losing customers before, charging for parking will not solve the problem."

Yes, there is free parking (without time limit) in Palo Alto at Town and Country shopping center and Stanford shopping Center. I can go there and shop and dine without worrying that I will get a parking ticket if I go 5 minutes beyond the 2 hour mark which has actually happened to me in Menlo Park. While I like to spend time/money in downtown Menlo Park, I will vote with my feet against overly aggressive enforcement of the 2 hour limit and the new plan for parking meters. I think this will lead to an overall decline in patronage of downtown Menlo Park businesses.

I am happy to feed a meter in downtown MP is need be. The bigger question is what's so compelling there that I want to spend more than 2 hours for?

Hmmm:
"The bigger question is what's so compelling there that I want to spend more than 2 hours for?"

Congratulations, you get the award for best/funniest comment!

"The city also considered simply extending the parking limit to three hours, but staff concluded that would only lead to more downtown employees taking up parking spaces, leaving fewer available for shoppers."

How so? Do a significant number of employees work more than 2 hours but less than 3 hours? To me, extending the parking limit to 3 hours seems like the simplest solution.

Sam, the other lousy part of this is that employees are also shoppers! It's so tiresome that the moronic city folks never acknowledge that. When I worked downtown, between my shopping, dining & paying for parking tickets, I dropped a lot of cash in an otherwise uninteresting area. The best part was dodging being hit by cars when crossing the street.

Most of Palo Alto's downtown parking is FREE, unlike what other comments in this thread imply. For details see /www.cityofpaloalto.org/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=3904

Areas of downtown are color-coded - purple, coral, lime, blue. Parkers are limited to 2-3 hour segments and must move their car within that time or get a ticket. One cannot repark in the same zone during the same day, but can move to another zone.

I think it's worth trying a charge for all-day parking in some area to allow employees that choice. That would be easier if we had a parking garage. The current proposal is a decent interim step; a less expensive option is to simply designate an area that allows 3 hour parking for free. Can't we try that first?

Will each psrking slot have a meter?
Or will drivers have to walk to a pay station and then walk back to their cars and display the receipt?
The 2nd option is time-consuming and inconvenient and, IMO, will serve as more of a deterent than the cost itself.

Peter Carpenter is correct - this headline is very misleading (the one in today's Daily Post is even worse). The primary change being made is to allow those that need to park longer than two hours to do so without having to go down to City Hall to purchase a day permit. Now all that they will have to do is to walk over to the pay station and pay for the time that they actually need. Since parking is still free for the first two hours, very few people will actually end up paying any money. But for those who need to be downtown longer, this provides a convenient way to extend their time. And most importantly, it should reduce the number of parking tickets issued downtown.

One angle that the press seems to have missed: this change was originally passed by the Menlo Park City Council in September of 2010. Why was it brought back to the Council again? And if there is a reasonable answer, why did it take so long to return?

If you don't want to drive around looking for a parking space, and you don't want to pay for parking, the do what I do. Ride a bike. It's easy and fun.

Mickie:

if the pay station system is set up like it is in Redwood City each stall is numbered. You go to the pay station, enter your stall number and pay. Returning to your car is not necessary.

Yeah, the RWC system works pretty well. I'd love to know if that Parking Nazi is still going to chase cars? If so, Ranch Gal and I better be on the alert!

I get my hair done at Vizions on Santa Cruz Ave. It takes 3 hours total. Only allowed to park for 2. Get a ticket every once in awhile. Bummer..... Go to lunch at Carpaccios. Sometimes it lasts over 2 hours when there is a group of us gals. Get a ticket every once in awhile. Bummer..... MP traffic enforcement sure does love to promote downtown businesses I must say! LOL

In the past few years I have probably paid about $300 in parking fines in Menlo Park. Stanford Shopping Center and T&C Village is really a much better option. Shop and dine all day. No worries. I am totally against parking meters and 2 hour parking. 3 hours is good. With a lunch and shopping, it really takes 3 hours. Really! Go to lunch, do some nice shopping, end up at Draeger's.... 3 hours definitely. Trying to keep it all in downtown MP.

Well, after attending the July 28 Planning Commissiion meeting, I realized again, that like our
City Council, neither listen to the speakers that get to speak and n ot respond later for 3 minutes. 3/4 of the speakers on 7/28 were opposed tio the downtown plan and the comission did what it wanteed to do in the first place. As in the past, I will not vote to re-elec t people who act like this, whenever I have the opportunity to vote.

The police dept. told me that they do not have enough people to not get after cars that drive over the crosswalks, with pedestrians c rossing, but the city has plenty of people to give us parking tickets. Guess safety isn't as important as finances.

The planning commissioners are appointed, not elected. They are volunteers who earn nothing for their time commitment, which is substantial. Having served on a city commission myself, I appreciate the effort our commissioners and council members contribute to our city. I wonder how many of the complainers on here have ever done anything for our city other than gripe?

Note that the commissioners are taking into account the needs of all residents of the city, not just those who were able to attend the meeting. Most speakers were property owners who were clearly more concerned about the possibility of having to pay for parking than about community needs.