Dear Mr. Walton: I appreciate your recent letter to the Almanac about parking issues in Menlo Park. A number of your points resonated with me. As mayor, I take very seriously your feeling that you were “fined” for patronizing Menlo Park’s downtown.
My hope is that as the city takes action to make parking more user-friendly, you will give Menlo Park’s downtown a chance to win back your business.
Your main point is that you did not appreciate how you were treated by the parking officer that issued you the ticket for exceeding the two-hour limit. Also implied in your letter is a frustration with the two-hour parking limit itself.
I can say that Menlo Park values good customer service and expects all city staff members to exhibit courtesy in both word and deed to residents, businesses, and visitors. I have passed your letter on to our city manager and the police chief for further review.
On the issue of the two-hour limit itself, you are not the first person to write to the city council to complain about parking. One suggestion has been to change the duration to a three-hour limit. This benefits some merchants like hair salons, but hurts others that depend on higher turnover in the parking. In your case, the lot wasn’t full, but clearly parking rules must be designed to function at peak times as well as off-peak.
I agree that downtown parking should be more user-friendly. Recently, the city has acted to lay the groundwork toward this end by:
• Participating in a regionally sponsored study to assess current usage patterns and parking demand.
• Considering formation of a public-private partnership to build a downtown parking garage.
• Undertaking a comprehensive downtown visioning and planning process, of which parking will be a part.
In addition, city staff, council members, downtown merchants, and others have been studying the principles in “The High Cost of Free Parking,” an economics text by Professor Donald Shoup of UCLA, to educate themselves regarding modern case studies and theory regarding successful downtown parking arrangements.
On Oct. 3, the City Council is meeting to review our goals and objectives with our new city manager. I will be sure to raise your concerns, which I share, and ask my colleagues to consider a downtown parking action plan as we move forward in serving Menlo Park’s residents, businesses, and visitors.
Kelly Fergusson is mayor of Menlo Park.
Other views from our readers
Menlo has parking tickets, but no meters!
Welcome to the Bay Area, Mr. Walton! (Guest Opinion, Sept. 26.)
You are complaining about getting a parking ticket in a “half-empty” parking lot. Would you have written the same comments if the parking lot was full that day?
In case you don’t know, Menlo Park is one of the few cities around here without parking meters. In my hometown, Redwood City, you have to feed a parking meter downtown.
I can tell there is a lot of frustration in your ranting about your ticket, but I think retaliating by boycotting and blackmailing Menlo Park is not appropriate.
I once got a ticket in Redwood City for parking my car within 20 feet of a railroad track. (I was there six minutes, to purchase a burrito.)
I once had a ticket for making a U-turn on a completely desolate stretch of Highway 101 in Southern California.
I did not put a single person in danger by either maneuver, but there was one person there, who was “just doing his job.”
Oh, and if it is any consolation: In downtown San Francisco, one first has to spend 30 minutes trying to find a parking-space, then pay something like a quarter per minute. And probably a $35 fine if you are late two minutes.
Sebastapol is a nice little town, perhaps without meters, and no meter-maids, but I encourage you to come back to Menlo Park.
Dieter Hurni
Eighth Avenue, Redwood City
Menlo’s parking limits are anti-business
I must concur with Jim Walton (last week’s Guest Opinion). Parking regulations in Menlo Park are anti-visitor and anti-business.
As a retired educator, I relish having lunch with friends. We frequently chat for two hours over our meal. Afterwards, we’d like to shop a bit, but no, we must move our cars. Oh well, let’s go on home, giving no business to local stores. Better yet, in the future we will enjoy lunch in Redwood City or Palo Alto, where we will find three-hour parking zones to accommodate our habits.
Overly strict parking regulations surely have a deleterious effect on the community.
Nancy Barnby
Spruce Avenue, Menlo Park
