The concept, as I understand it, is to start the NRA lots as parking lots and then gradually convert them into park as more parking becomes available in other spots downtown (presumably because of the construction of a parking structure.)The mayor added he is developing a five-to-eight-year plan to provide additional parking as the bulk of the NRA lots are absorbed into parkland.
Now what I'm not sure is if we're talking about leveling and paving the current dirt lots into actual parking lots. If that is the case we'd be ripping up freshly paved lots, and that wouldn't make a great deal of sense. It'd be a waste of time and materials.
So I'm guessing that isn't the case.
Still, the whole conversion notion bothers me a bit. It seems as if parking fees might become a steady stream of revenue that any entity--be the NRA or the city--could get used to having. It might be hard to give up that money, even bit-by-bit, especially if it's being replaced with expensive parking land.
Of course you know where I stand on the waterfront issue. If you don't go here, here, here, here and here.
1 comment:
I think the Mayor's idea of a transition over time from parking into parkland it a great one. It will give residents, visitors and merchants time to adjust to new circulation paths, learn where the new spaces are, etc. And since we don't necessarily have the money to nicely landscape the area right away, perhaps this allows for incremental plantings, etc. Maybe it can become an Earth Day tradition for people to donate for planting new trees.
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