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Menlo Park police want to help Santa make his way to your house, so they will loosen up on parking enforcement from Dec. 5 through Jan. 3.
For all downtown plazas except Plaza 4, located between Draeger’s Market and Peet’s Coffee on University Drive, the time limit will be extended from two to three hours. Plaza 4 keeps its two-hour limit.
Pay-by-space parking meters are also operational in Plaza 1 (off Oak Grove Avenue near El Camino Real) and Plaza 5 (off Crane and Evelyn streets between Santa Cruz and Menlo avenues). The first two hours of parking are free, then the third hour costs $1; the fourth, $1.50, with additional time costing $2 per hour. Drivers can add time by credit card or cell phone.
BIG WHOOP
So they loosen up on parking enforcement in order to drive more business into the downtown. Why doesn’t it register with our city council that if that works during the holiday it will work the rest of the year too? We might actually see some more of those vacant storefronts get filled.
Is this a Police decision, or City Council? Who is in charge? Menlo Voter is making sense, so is Work and Live. But be careful to criticize, because the powers might decide to take it all back. The restrictions on street parking is the larger problem, but are not being eased.
It would make more sense to have 3 hour parking for ALL of downtown Menlo Park for the Christmas season. I think having the different plazas with different hours will be confusing for most of us!
The downtown parking regs were modified several years ago at the request of the downtown business owners. I remember not all business owners and downtown users were happy but the city found a solution somewhere in the middle. Good job city. In the end, more were OK with the solution than were not. If those who are not happy today want a change, survey ALL downtown business owners and downtown users and propose a change to the city.