Downtown Parking - Grace Period Idea

Free parking limits always lead to confusion and frustration. Other cities with limited parking capacity are abandoning free parking and switching to good old pay parking meters, which everyone understands. Some of the newer parking meters (like the ones in San Mateo) will even give you a receipt with a printed expiration date so there is absolutely no confusion. Parking meter fees don't have to be expensive; I think San Mateo charges a token 25 cents/hour (up to 50 cents in prime locations). These fees are way less than the price of gas, but still remind shoppers to take them seriously (unlike the Menlo Park time zones).

Obviously, building enough free parking to make everyone happy is financially impractical, so a system that encourages turnover is important. Public transportation can also help, though our current public transit system really does not encourage people to visit downtown Menlo Park.

I got $45 tickets two months in a row parking downtown. One for parking in back of Peet's for about 10-15 minutes over an hour. Truth be known, I didn't realize we had 1-hour spaces in the back lots. Thought everything back there was two hours.

The second one was for parking improperly within the space behind Walgreens. (You know the ones. If you don't park carefully, you can easily block through traffic or make it tough for others to park in adjacent spots.)
The ticket category was ambiguous enough that I visited the Police Station to better understand what I actually did to merit the ticket. The attending officer looked up the citation. No photo online. The officer in charge of the program dismissed the ticket - but not without positing that the ticket probably should have been for staying too long.

Between parking tickets and cameras - why is our city spending so much of our money on this kind of revenue generation?

I believe in supporting local, small businesses and I do my best to patronize as many of the great local businesses in MP as possible. The first ticket was irritating - but I guess I should have realized there was a newish, 1-hour sign posted in one slot behind Peets - and not overstayed my welcome by 15 minutes. When you get hit twice - you begin to feel that supporting local merchants isn't all it's cracked up to be. Is this really the message our City officials want to send to residents and visitors?

I'd like to see a garage available, much like one sees at 1) Stanford Shopping Center, 2) downtown Palo Alto, 3) in Redwood City and a host of other places. Land area is scarce, going up a few stories, or down a few stories, or a combination of both could alleviate a lot of the concerns expressed on this topic.

I got a ticket in a one- hour spot in a back lot this week, too. It was Monday, when Menlo Park schools were "closed" for teacher training, thus there were mobs of kids trailing their parents around, creating general inefficiency.

The check-out line at Trader Joes took about 20 minutes (child melt-down, etc.). So exasperating! What a choice: abandon a cart of frozen food because the line's too slow; or swallow the added cost of a ticket?

Next Trader Joe's trip: Palo Alto Town and Country. Too bad for Village Stationer, Starbucks, MP Hardware, Walgreens, Cheeky Monkey, and Draegers -- I won't be popping in for a quick thing when I'm downtown to do my grocery shopping. Menlo Park is off my list of shopping districts. Lots of other places to shop -- and not inside MP's screwed up police district. (why-ever have I waited so long to MP's downtown disaster zone?!?)

I haven't seen the 2013 numbers but we've averaged over 22,000 parking tickets per year in Menlo Park.

For a town of 32,000 people that is STUNNING. and quite frankly disturbing. The next time someone trys to tell you Menlo Park is quaint, or they want to keep the "Village Character" remind them that NO VILLAGE issues that many parking tickets to it's residents.

Like Kaz, I frequent Palo Alto for just that reason, and because they have EV Chargers for my car (which Menlo Park also hasn't figured out is a sign of an enlightened city)

think about that folks that more than one ticket per household in Menlo Park. Disgusting and out of control.

Roy Thiele-Sardina

Park inside the lines and don't overstay the limit. What's so difficult about following the rules? And, if you don't like the rules, then lobby the City Council to change them.

You think Menlo Park is bad? Redwood City has meters that take quarters, no credit cards, and no receipts. You key your space number into a centrally located machine and come back to find a ticket on your car. Great moneymaker for the city! I'm surprised Menlo Park isn't doing the same.

There's no reason to shop in Menlo Park during the week. Evenings or weekends only. If you've got more than one errand, easy enough to overstay your welcome, and hair or doctor/dentist appointments? If they don't have their own lots, don't even bother.

I know merchants in Los Altos who are complaining that parking enforcement is too lax. People there park and overstay the time limits because they know they are unlikely to be ticketed. This means that spaces are harder to find. There are tradeoffs, and it is hard to fine tune parking enforcement, because either people complain about excessive enforcement or people complain that the limits aren't enforced and it's hard to find parking. Building more parking will attract more cars on to El Camino and make traffic even worse. Every action has a reaction, and I actually think it's not terrible here. There is a huge amount of free parking. If you need to stay longer, you can pay for extra time in one of the pay lots. It's not that hard. The city has been trying hard to find the right balance but people who feel entitled to park in front of their destination for free are always going to find something to complain about.

Does the City offer Town Hall Meetings? If so, it would be interesting to see if the topic of aggressive downtown parking enforcement would be discussed? There are certainly many issues that would be relevant today, including how to help downtown merchants generate more customers. My sense is, far too many local and area shoppers have fled the area and gone to more parking friendly places, such as Town and Country Village and Stanford Shopping Center where there are no parking time limits.

Avoid Redwood City - all Redwood City machines take credit cards. I'm in RWC pretty often and I've never had a ticket. They are not very aggressive about ticketing expired meters.

Menlo Park Shopper - EVERY meeting of your City Council has a time period devoted to the public to comment on items not on that evening's agenda. You are free to walk up to the microphone and state your thoughts about any issue, including parking enforcement. You can even ask the Council to put this issue on the agenda of their next (or more likely a future) meeting. Public comment is always provided for any issue on the agenda.