Free parking hours in downtown Menlo Park extended

This is wonderful news! Out of all the downtown shopping areas: Burlingame age, university Ave, downtown San Mateo and Santana Row---Menlo Park downtown has the worst highly regulated parking I've seen! I have received 3 tickets and it deters me from wanting to meet friends for lunch or shopping downtown Santa Cruz Ave.

FINALLY!!! Let's hope the city keeps this change after the trial! Not only to keep out shoppers but for the many employees who can't afford the hefty ticket, the parking permit or inconveniencing customers so they can leave to move their car for the 3rd time in a day! (Don't think the customers don't notice that either -- rediculous!)

It really annoys me that people like Richard Draeger seem to think that the public parking lots are just for their use. He doesn't seem to care about the burden that a parking permit has on his employees. Maybe if he cares so much he should pay for the permits? I guess I will just have to curtail my frequent visits to Draeger's to show that I don't support his position. Also doesn't Draeger's have their own lot across the street from the store? They can set what ever limits they want there, so why try to dictate what the city can do with a lot that is public property?

Shame on Dragers

This is a misguided idea which will make parking more difficult for those that want to shop on Menlo Park while using a car. Employees that are currently parking in paid lots or in free remote locations will now move to the parking plazas which will take spaces from business customers. I am glad that this is a trial so that we can test it out and see what happens.

I don't understand the venom directed at Richard Draeger when he is 100% correct from a planning perspective. If you let cars park for longer before they have to move, there will be fewer spaces available. This is not rocket science, it is something that people have understood for 50+ years. Now we are going to have more full parking plazas and people circling to find parking and giving up and going elsewhere. Now we see complaints about parking tickets, when the trial starts we will see complaints about it being too hard to park downtown.

There is not enough variety to shop for 3 hrs on Santa Cruz ave. including lunch somewhere. It an unnecessary change for a city which has 1 street of stores and a dozen restaurants. Hopefully the trial period will show that and city council will see the error of their ways.

The MP city council would do well to read "The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup. (See Web Link for a download)

The 3-hour limit should come with a no re-parking rule (similar to Palo Alto, where you can't re-park in the same color zone - MP is small enough to be a single zone), encouraging those who need long-term parking to either pay for parking or park outside of the downtown core. Employee parking could easily be handled by a farther away lot with inexpensive, transferrable monthly permits. This would help mitigate the problem of people who are downtown for the day parking close and then moving their vehicle every couple of hours (which also creates a great deal of nuisance traffic)

Increasing the street parking to 90 minutes will simply slow down turnover, which will reduce retail traffic. If you need to park for more than an hour, walking the extra 50 or 100 steps from a lot should not be a big deal.

Mind you, if you really want to increase the vibrancy of downtown, better food and drink options would be a great start. How about something interesting and ethnic that's not afraid of a little flavor, instead of yet another blue-hair Italian place or tired / dated chain (I'm looking at you, Round Table)?

Folks, the lack of an hour more free parking is not the primary issue around vibrancy. The fact that we have limited, and somewhat cramped, parking is a challenge that needs to be fixed via a garage but the bigger issue is the lack of quality offerings. There are a few good restaurants and a few decent merchants -- not a lot of either. The lack of many quality offerings is NOT primarily because of parking policy. Palo Alto and Town and Country are not easy to park in, particularly PA, nor are they easy to get to on bikes due to El Camino, yet they are very vibrant. The are vibrant because the variety of offerings is much greater, in part due to more favorable rents and more appealing options for things like outdoor seating. They also have more relevant offerings for families. If you want to grab something to eat with the kids or shop for a range of goods, MP is not the place to go.

Extending parking for the relatively few number of boutique customers will make parking harder for the employees and the users of more errand destinations such as take-out food, coffee places, Walgreens, etc. More of our residents are shorter stay shoppers and they will be inconvenienced by reduced availability so it does seem that the test will largely benefit a small pocket of shoppers -- in fact, those most able to pay for parking. Think about it -- if parking was free for all without any restrictions, would that be better or worse for our town? would you spend more time and money downtown? It is great for our businesses to have easier access for customers but with limited parking overall the wise economic choice, unfortunately, is not to open up free parking. A garage or two is more the answer -- much easier parking, more room for bikes, space for employees and ability to extend hours. That is the step change that is needed. In short term, it is fine to do the test and be smart about measuring the results but lets spend more time on the real longer term challenges to vibrancy.