40 people signed in at the door (not including committee members).
Gary opened the meeting, gave a brief overview and introduced the committee members in attendance:
Gary then asked for a show of hands from the attendees and counted approximately:
Mentioned the web site and that corrections and updates would be posted on the website. He pointed at an aerial photo of the Jack London District, which is six years old, and noted stickers on the photo that show all the new development in just six years and the consequent increase in demand for parking. Don gave a brief history of parking in area from ’97 when diagonal parking was first introduced adding 100 additional spaces, to most recent meeting organized by city last winter when city presented proposal to add parking meters throughout neighborhood. Proposal was not at all popular and the neighborhood was invited to come back with its own proposal.
Don summarized the problem: there is no such thing as
free parking in an urban neighborhood any more.
Steve outlined variety of parking needs and the study area. The study area includes a majority of the mixed-use (industrial/commercial/residential) land in the area.
Gary Knecht added that currently the area includes approximately1456 on street parking spaces comprised of 295 parking meters, 945 all day spaces and 200 spaces with time limits.
Andrea outlined the assumptions made while drafting the plan (see draft plan).
Gary gave a summary of the four main goals of the plan:
Steve mentioned how two years ago he noticed how bad the parking situation had become.
He gave a description of angle parking and how it adds more spaces but requires more street width. Was first used in the Jack London District in ’97 and ’97 to add 100 extra spaces.
He pointed out it has caused no known problems in the area since introduction. However, Oakland standards have become more conservative since 1997 and existing angle spaces on several streets do not meet the more conservative standards.
Steve mentioned that San Diego has standards for diagonal parking that allow diagonal parking on narrower streets using varying parking angles. If applied to JLD these would allow most streets to be used for diagonal parking.
Steve then outlined the proposals that the city should adopt to allow used of the San Diego standards and for the application of them in JLD. He then took questions from the floor.
A: Diagonal parking is on one side of street only and still provides plenty of room for traffic flow. It causes no more of a problem than parallel parking on a normal width street. If particular problems occur a petition can be filed to get stop signs.
A: San Diego allow for handicapped parking to be added at the same time as diagonal parking, handicapped parking would be at one end of a block to give extra room. Spots can be requested on demand by contacting the city.
A: Current or new rules will apply to angle parking spaces. They are treated no differently from normal parallel spaces.
Q: Parking issues at Jackson and 2nd –
concerned about warehouse and loading bay conflicts with diagonal spaces on
that street.
A: Gary explained that there would be enough room with slight modification to layout shown on map at meeting.
Q: Have we tried to maximize use of diagonal parking?
A: Yes, the committee believes it has added it in every place it can reasonably be added where not prevented by loading activity or curb cuts.
Q: What is the width of diagonal spaces? Will they accommodate SUV size vehicles?
A: Gary didn’t know the exact dimensions off hand, it could be found out. The city has standards for the width and the spaces will comply with that width.
A: There is a bike path on 2nd Street and diagonal parking cannot be used on that street.
A: The standards are broken down by the use of the area, different standards apply for different areas. San Diego standards are not fully implemented across the city.
Q: On the north side of E (3rd and Oak) on map
parking is opposite sidewalk/unimproved area.
Will city require sidewalks to be built by property owner as a consequence
of adding diagonal parking?
A: Gary believed not, city would only require sidewalks to be built after major improvement to the property by the owner.
There was then considerable comment and discussion about if this was the case. Gary reiterated that it was outside of the City’s bounds to be requiring sidewalks to be rebuilt because of changes in parking. Joanna Adler pointed out it is better that we do not raise this issue in the parking plan.
Margaret described how commuters use spaces without time limits. They arrive early and take all day parking spaces denying parking for local residents and businesses.
It is a proposal of the plan that one, two, three and four hour time limits are added to spaces. The length of time depends on what is appropriate for the block on which they are.
Q: What about enforcement? Should the cost of enforcement be addressed in the plan?
A: It was pointed out there is strong enforcement already. The cost is covered by revenue from tickets.
There were many questions about time limits and permits. In general there was confusion about separation of time limits for permit use in the plan.
Gary pointed out that time limits are the solution to the commuter-parking problem, and permits are the solution to providing resident and business parking.
A: The plan currently proposes 4-hour time limits; shorter time periods will be decided on a block-by-block basis, it is up to the people on those blocks to help define what the appropriate time limits are.
Comment: Employees and customers don’t necessarily park on the block where they work or shop.
Comment: Four hour limits are best, shorter limits discourage shoppers.
Joanna outlined the mixed-use permit-parking program included in the plan.
A: The City will paint red zones. People on blocks affected can help identify where they would be required.
Q: Can we add an “extended stay visitors” category for people eligible to get a permit? This is done in San Francisco.
A: The City of Oakland already does this for pure residential permit. There doesn’t seem any reason why the mixed-use district permit program could not include provisions for extended stay visitors.
A: This could lead to abuse, such as selling of permits.
Q: As a resident I don’t believe I should have to pay for parking, $100 is too much. What can we do to reduce the amount to something lower?
A: Joanna explained that
the cost is less than $2 a week, much less than even the cheapest paid parking.
The City of Oakland has commented that they lose money on administering current
residential permits. The price is also
set to discourage businesses from buying large numbers of permits. The alternative is parking meters everywhere
which would be much more expensive and would not allow all day parking.
The fee for permits
will be discussed in a future meeting on August 27th
Q: Why not limit the number per business? Also for employers with a high employee turnover permits fixed to a vehicle may be impractical?
A: This should be raised
at the August 27th meeting
Q: One permit per mailing address is not enough, how about two? San Francisco charges $27 per permit, $100 is high!
A: This should be raised at the August 27th
meeting.
Q: I work in a building in the port area and won't be eligible for a permit. My only option for parking will be a $78 a month paid space.
A: The port and their
commercial affiliates need to provide more parking for their employees. We need more representation and
collaboration from the port in helping define the plan.
Merritt pointed out how strong the enforcement of parking restrictions on our area is. Parking citations are a big source of revenue for the city. A $35 ticket for a one-hour parking meter violation is perceived as much worse than the equivalent fine for overstaying in a four hour zone. Also our parking meter charges are comparably very high, generating a lot of income.
Merritt explained that parking meters could be a disaster for business and residents and turn people away from this area. Two-hour limit spaces across from Bed Bath and Beyond are heavily utilized, while parking meters on the same street are not used, people will drive around to avoid them. Due to heavy enforcement it’s too easy to get a ticket just getting change for meters.
Merritt expressed the opinion that we should fine a way to prevent permit parkers taking up spaces time-limited spaces near businesses in high turn over area, but without requiring parking meters.
Comment: People take two-hour parking spaces in preference to parking at a meter.
Comment: A broken parking meter outside a store
noticeably reduced the number of customers due to all day parkers.
Q: Given your experience in developing retail spaces what
is the ideal parking solution?
A: Tailor time limits to each business. This can be done with the input of local business owners to say what is appropriate for them.
Gary outlined the next steps that will be taken and said that four single topic meetings will be held August 25-28 at 6:00 (see schedule). RSVPs are encouraged as the meeting room is not large.
A parking consultant (Dowling Associates, Inc.) will be given the plan to review it before presenting to the city. The plan is to be finished by September 15 and presented to Vice Mayor Nancy Nadel and city staff. Nadel has scheduled a Jack London District Community Meeting for September 24, 2003.
Gary pointed out committee members have already put $2000 of their own money towards costs associated with development of the plan. Donations are welcome.
Donations were collected from the floor ($191). [Thank you!]
The meeting broke out into small groups to discuss parking needs of each area and for individual discussion with the committee members.