Council gets it backwards on new parking meters, should go learn from Shoup tonight
February 25, 2010 by V Smoothe · 75 Comments
Do you guys remember all that noise about parking meters this summer and fall? Of course you do. How could you possibly forget. Aside from the fact we have a lot of crime here in Oakland, I can’t think of any issue since I’ve lived here that has received such relentless media coverage.
Anyway, as you likely recall, after two contentious meetings, the Council voted to reverse their June decision that extend the parking meter hours until 8 and to make up for the lost revenue through a combination of steps, including the addition of 250 parking meters Citywide (PDF).
So two weeks ago at the Council’s Finance & Management Committee meeting, staff offered a list of 400 possible locations for the new parking meters (PDF). The list included the following locations:
- Lakeshore to 22nd on International Boulevard: 160 metered spaces
- 38th to 54th on International Boulevard: 130 metered spaces
- 4th to 14th on East 12th Street: 70 metered spaces
- 15th to 20th on Telegraph Avenue: 40 metered spaces
Now, almost all of those meter locations are in Council districts 5 and 2. Normal people tend not to think about things in those terms, but elected officials certainly do. So, as you can imagine, District 5 Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente and District 2 Councilmember Pat Kernighan were, um, none too pleased with the list.
The Committee said that Council’s original direction had been for the new meters to be evenly distributed throughout all seven Council districts, and that staff should go back and do it that way. Staff then decided that the best way to handle that was to ask each Councilmember to make a list of where they think 60 parking meters should go in their district. I don’t think I need to bother explaining why this is an staggeringly misguided way to approach parking policy.
If it isn’t obvious to you why this is a bad idea and you happen to be free this evening, allow me to suggest an event that you will likely find enlightening. High Cost of Free Parking author Donald Shoup will be speaking tonight in Lafayette. I’m out of town so I can’t go, but reports from people who trekked down to San Jose last night for the show have been uniformly laudatory.
The event will be held at the Lafayette Library and Learning Center Community Hall from 6 to 9 PM at 7 PM (see Dan’s comments below) at 3491 Mt. Diablo Blvd in Lafayette (map here). And no, you don’t have to drive there! It’s less than a half mile walk from the Lafayette BART station.
Mark your calendars!! On Thursday evening, February 25th, the cities of Lafayette and Walnut Creek will co-host a presentation on “Parking Policies in the Downtown” at the Lafayette Library and Learning Center. The speaker, Donald Shoup, is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles and has served as the Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies and Chair of the Department of Urban Planning at UCLA. He has extensively studied parking as a key link between transportation and land use, with important consequences for cities, the economy, and the environment. His influential book, The High Cost of Free Parking, is leading a growing number of cities to charge fair market prices for curb parking, dedicate the resulting revenue to finance public services in the metered districts, and reduce or remove off-street parking requirements.
I really wish I could go to this, and I hope some of you will and report back to us. Shoup’s work gets referenced pretty frequently in policy discussions when parking comes up in Oakland, but the nuances of his research and suggestions are, frankly, very rarely stated accurately. I get that it’s a long book, and an expensive one, but I still wish more people would take the time to sit down and read it. Attending the presentation is certainly going to be a substantially faster way to learn.
Might have to wait a little longer for that 12th Street Bridge
February 21, 2010 by V Smoothe · 106 Comments
If you lived in Oakland in 2002 and happened to make it to the polls that November, odds are that you, like 80% of Oaklanders, voted yes on Measure DD.
Measure DD was a nearly $200 million bond measure meant to finance improvements to Oakland’s creeks and waterways, public recreation facilities, waterfront parks, and of course, Lake Merritt. It’s Measure DD we have to thank for Lake Chalet at the Boathouse and the reconfiguration of El Embarcadero.
Ignacio De La Fuente: Join me in demanding real solutions to Oakland’s financial crisis
February 18, 2010 by Ignacio De La Fuente · 68 Comments
Since the outset of the current financial crisis, I have encouraged the residents in District 5 and my supporters throughout the city to participate in the Budget process to advocate for the preservation of what I believe should be the focus of our City budget, CORE SERVICES. These core services are: Police; Fire; Parks; Libraries; Streets; Sewers; Sidewalks; and the most essential services for our Seniors and Youth. I have been pleading with my colleagues on the council to realize the urgency of this crisis, and I am again urging you to join me as I push them to stop delaying critical decisions that impact Oakland’s immediate and long-term fiscal health.
The most depressing part of the budget: poor DIT
February 16, 2010 by V Smoothe · 27 Comments
As I’m sure you guys are all aware, this afternoon the City Council will be holding a special budget meeting to address the shortfall in the City’s current year budget. But the fun doesn’t end there! After the budget meeting, we’ve got the regular Council meeting (PDF) to look forward to. Thankfully, the agenda is relatively short and looks like it won’t go too long, although you really never can tell.
This Tuesday! City Hall! One night only! Budget magic show! Tricks galore! Smoke! Mirrors! Don’t miss!
February 10, 2010 by V Smoothe · 61 Comments
Since I had like half a dozen people ask me yesterday, including people I don’t even know in the comments here – yes, I am okay! Nothing terrible happened, I’m just really busy. I apologize for abandoning the blog without warning. I am working on a number of different exciting projects at the moment (some related to creating a better Oakland, some not at all), and in all my excitement to do all sorts of cool things, I seem to have gotten myself way overcommitted. I’m confident that if I can ever catch up on all the things I’m behind on, I’ll be able to juggle the ongoing work okay. But if I am ever going to get caught up, something had to go temporarily, and unfortunately for you guys, that was writing new blogs and reading the news (I haven’t even opened my RSS reader in over a week, hence the lack of updates in the news feed. I’m terrified of what it’s going to look like when I finally do!)
Free parking for City employees. Why?
January 12, 2010 by V Smoothe · 69 Comments
This afternoon, the Oakland City Council’s Finance and Management Committee discussed, among other things, the issue of parking privileges for city employees (PDF). You may have caught the item about this from The Oakbook the other day. If not, here’s the proposal.
Dear Council: 64,000 voters are the boss of you. You have to do IRV.
January 5, 2010 by V Smoothe · 30 Comments
I have intentionally not said a word about Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) on this blog, because it’s one of those annoying topics, like PRT, that whenever you mention it, zealots on both sides of the issue from all over the country appear out of nowhere and hijack your blog with their never-ending comments of craziness. Alas, the City Council will be voting tonight on whether to implement IRV for this November’s election (PDF), and I’m becoming increasingly concerned that the vote will not go as smoothly as I had hoped.
Vacant building registry returns to Council
January 4, 2010 by V Smoothe · 22 Comments
The hot topic for tomorrow’s Council meeting is the adoption of Instant Runoff Voting for this year’s election, which means that we won’t have June primaries and will only vote on City Council and Mayor once, in November. If you want to read about IRV, the staff reports for the agenda items are here (PDF) and here (PDF), and Becks has a blog up about it today. But IRV is not the only important thing on tomorrow’s agenda. We’ve also got the return of the vacant building registry (PDF)
Bruce Nye: Does Oakland have a budget crisis? Sure enough it does.
December 23, 2009 by Bruce Nye · 73 Comments
Bruce Nye is Board Chair of Make Oakland Better Now! The opinions in this post, however, are his, and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the organization. Make Oakland Better Now! will be holding an emergency city budget meeting to vote on the organization’s position on the city budget on Monday, January 11, 2010 at 6:30 p.m., at Oakland City Hall, 1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, Hearing Room 4.
For some time, we’ve been hearing Oakland’s politicians talk about a budget crisis. And everybody should be forgiven if they’re numb to this whole discussion. But guess what? There really, really is a crisis, and it’s going to have a huge impact on all of us, particularly if we, as a city, don’t take action.
League of Women Voters: What is Records Management – and Why Should You Care About it?
December 10, 2009 by League of Women Voters · 11 Comments
Records management is the practice of maintaining the records of an organization — in this case, the City of Oakland — from the time they are created up to their eventual disposal. This may include the classification, storage, securing, and destruction of records.1 Capability for timely record retrieval is also a key part of a modern records management system.
Doing it right the second time around: parking returns to Council
December 4, 2009 by V Smoothe · 30 Comments
It was a great pleasure watching the City Council’s Public Works Committee’s discussion of parking issues last Tuesday.
As most of you probably remember, the City Council voted to raise the hourly parking meter price to $2 and extend the operating hours of parking meters from 6 to 8 PM as part of this summer’s budget process. The changes, coupled with a widespread perception of increased aggressiveness in parking enforcement and one very angry business owner with a very large billboard, created significant outcry among both residents and business groups. In response to the vocal opposition, the Council agreed to revisit the parking issue.
Remember This: Champions for wasting money
December 1, 2009 by V Smoothe · 92 Comments
This afternoon, the Oakland City Council’s Community and Economic Development Committee will be asked to grant $182,000 of redevelopment funds (PDF) to the Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce Foundation to help them pay the costs of building a house-sized monstrosity and plopping in on top of downtown Oakland’s newest park.
