All posts in the topic Parking on University Avenue after light rail (Short link)
Summary
- There are 2 posts — by 2 authors — in this topic.
- Latest post made by John Wilson at Jul 22 17:41 UTC
As astute readers of this forum will know, the latest plans from the Central Corridor office includes a drastic change in the projected street parking on University Avenue after the new Light Rail Transit (LRT) line is constructed. For years, the projection was a loss of - at most - 40% of the current street parking. The new projections include elimination of nearly 90% of all street parking on University. This very serious change could have a ripple impact on businesses in our area. Even with additional off-street parking and shared lots, the impact on "landlocked" businesses with no direct parking could be enormous. I'm a transit advocate and a transit user, but I'm also a realist about what happens to businesses when street parking is removed. These designs need to be submitted for Federal Transportation Administration Approval the first week of September. There is very little time to understand and respond to these changes. We have requested the Met Council project engineers meet with our Board of Directors and community members to get more details on these projections. The meeting will be held at the Rondo Community Outreach Library, 461 Dale Street, on Monday, July 28 at 6:00 PM. Come when you can, you do not need to be present for the whole meeting to learn more. You can read the Metropolitan Council's recent presentation about parking, their most recent traffic study summary, and the "Translations" project from U-Plan that shows where the parking will remain, on our web site - http://GreaterFrogtownCDC.org. Steve Boland Working in Frogtown Living in Summit-U Hoping neither one becomes "fly-over" territory
Transit funding isn't as simple as it seems. Capital projects are funded
seperately from current operations. Therefore, forgoing the Central Corridor
*wouldn't* enable Metro Transit to lower bus fares. I actually agree that
improving bus service would be more effective (especially in the short term)
than building light rail, but unfortunately the Feds prioritise capital
projects when it comes to urban transit funding. In smaller towns, you can see
this even more bluntly: buses may not run at night or on Sunday, but they can
afford a multi-million dollar fancy transit centre for people to wait in (even
though most small systems operate on a "pulse" system where all buses meet
downtown at the same time virtually eliminating public waiting time).