Debate Recap
The New West Side blog and the Daily have posted their summaries of last night’s debate. In the past, candidates in front of student-dominated audiences have bent over backwards to appear sensitive to student and density issues, but that was not the case last night.
- Second Ward Republican candidate Tom Bourque said that he believed that residential parking districts are necessary because he’s observed that when they’re implemented, there are no longer any cars parked on the street. So much for residents needing a place to park.
- Bourque also argued that students should feel adequately represented in city politics because they tend to vote Democratic, and Democrats usually win. (We’ve usually leaned more Republican in Ann Arbor races, but not this year.)
- Unopposed 1st Ward incumbent Bob Johnson said that historic districts don’t threaten density because they make up a small amount of the geographic area of the city.
- Independent 3rd Ward candidate Rich Birkett suggested that the primary solution to crime that targets students should be more vigilance on the part of potential victims, including the purchase of expensive home security systems.
- Birkett was, however, the only candidate to respond to a question about underage drinking citations by expressing any reservations about police party patrols.
It looks to be a lean year for students in A2 politics.
As I noted, there were a lot of dodges. Either a lot of the candidates and council members are ignorant of the ramifications of their policies, or they are experts in cognitive dissonance.
One example is the suggestion that, since the Old West Side has a residential parking program and there haven’t been these kinds of complaints, the Oxbridge/NoBuPa program complaints aren’t legitimate. However, fraternities and cooperatives have a tiny presence (if any) on the west side and they are disproportionately penalized in the new parking district, where they have a significant presence. OF COURSE there aren’t those kinds of complaints on the West Side — they don’t apply.
Rapundalo suggested examining and reevaluating the program by the end of the academic year. We’re going to run with that.
posted by Dale on November 3rd, 2005 at 11:23 amYou are correct. Ann Arbor is indeed overrated. It sucks there.
posted by SpaceMonkey on November 3rd, 2005 at 11:27 amThe podcast of last night’s debate is up.
posted by Dale on November 3rd, 2005 at 12:20 pmI got a ticket for parking in front of the OWS apartment building I lived in for a year. While I was inside packing more boxes to load into my truck to move to my new apartment.
Now, I don’t know how the residential parking thing works, but I was a resident and got ticketed anyway. If that’s how that sort of program is going to function, can’t say as I’d be in favor of more of them.
Maybe you need to be one of Ann Arbor’s star-bellied Sneetches to park on public streets.
posted by Dave on November 3rd, 2005 at 1:35 pmDave -
No, you just have to drop $40 (by calendar year, mind you - not, say, a full year after issue so it’d work for Sept-Sept leases) and jump through all sorts of hoops.
i.e. you’re supposed to have your license address match your residence, and your car registration as well. I got around that, and apparently I’m one of the very few.
Still, I have to drop $100 a year to park in my neighborhood, and I can’t easily get a spot on Wednesdays or Saturdays. And the cops and city hall have different ideas over where the pass should be, so even though I’ve had the pass since August, I’ve had to fight 5 or so tickets for parking 2+ hours.
Good times, good times.
posted by Jen on November 3rd, 2005 at 2:48 pmI figured it was something like that. Sounds like another municipal money-making scam to me. Guess I got off cheap, since the ticket was only $25. What a bargain. Pricks.
posted by Dave on November 3rd, 2005 at 2:55 pmNo, the city doesn’t encourage the zones at all, it’s the neighbors. The westside north of huron (spring/summit/miller/brooks) has a bunch of people trying to get it established, because some of the residents of spring especially have a lot of commuters parking on their block and some of them don’t have driveways or garages, apparently. Of course, the whole thing is predicated on the assumption that the streets belong to the residents, and all the booster talk about living so close to downtown immediately turns into turf-guarding when someone can’t count on always always finding a parking space in front of their own house.
Count on the Old West Side to corporatize everything, and pass the idea along to everyone else. Ann Arbor is overrated!
posted by Buzz on November 3rd, 2005 at 3:07 pmI work downtown and I park every day in a residential neighborhood (not saying where). The 2-hours-or-resident-permit-only side of the street is usually empty, and the anybody-can-park-all-day side is usually almost (but not quite) full. So I’d say that only half the parking is being used, and I don’t feel in the least bit guilty about parking in “someone’s” neighborhood. If it was full all the time I could see the residents having a case. Just an observation.
posted by Michael McC. on November 3rd, 2005 at 3:40 pmThe situation I always found annoying is the stretch of Greene street in front of UM’s Buhr library. (This is the place where UM keeps all the most interesting books, the ones that are not in constant demand.) Buhr has a small lot, mostly restricted, with maybe four metered spots for the public.
posted by Larry Kestenbaum on November 3rd, 2005 at 3:56 pmGreene Street is a big wide street with little traffic and plenty of room for parking, yet parking there is prohibited whenever the library is open!
My current neighborhood is packed all day with commuters’ cars, which is fine since during the day I’m at work. It’s usually not a problem to park near my place when I come home. I would hate to be forced to jump through bureaucratic hoops and pay extra if there were a few stay-at-home ninnies complaining, or whatever. (I’m in the general area of Spring/Summit/Miller/Etc.)
posted by Dave on November 3rd, 2005 at 4:23 pmDave -
Municipal money-making scheme? If only! Sad fact is that the rest of us are paying these neighborhoods to give us tickets.
(now-graduated urban planning student) Scott TenBrink did some investigation back in May, and found that the OWS’ program operated on an 85% public subsidy in 2004. The OWS paid (for permits) $3250, while the cost was estimated at $18130. I think the cost per-permit has been raised, but still not enough to make the OWS’s parking program turn a profit. I don’t know if any numbers are available yet for OxBridge or NoBuPa.
posted by Murph on November 3rd, 2005 at 5:11 pmI live in a residents-only area. The problem before the zone was established was not commuters but long-term parkers. There weren’t any spaces for either commuters or residents because, increasingly, the spaces were occupied permanently by cars that rarely moved (maybe a once-a-month drive home).
What I would have preferred rather than the 2-hour daily parking was open parking during the day but permit-only overnight parking. This would leave plenty of space for commuters and residents both. Other solutions need to be found for long-term storage parking (e.g. long-term lots & shuttles).
That said, after a day of street-clearing towing when the zone was new, I haven’t seen a truck since then and commuters do seem to be pushing the 2-hour limit without getting nailed.
posted by mw on November 3rd, 2005 at 5:34 pmI don’t see why AA would want to encourage people to use their cars more. Why should someone who drives to work have easy access to on-street parking, while the occasional driver has to park someplace inconvenient?
posted by Anna on November 3rd, 2005 at 5:50 pmmw, i have _never_ seen lovely rita meter maid (with whom i have a long-standing business relationship) after 5 pm.
e.g., street parking in my neighborhood is prohibited from 3 to 6 am, yet in over two years, i have never observed a car ticketed or towed.
i don’t think that department punches in after hours.
related thought: did scott tenbrink’s analysis include revenue/expense from ticketing?
posted by peter honeyman on November 3rd, 2005 at 7:07 pmMurph- Aren’t we in a budget crunch? How can we justify having more of these damn things if they cost us 18 grand per? Arg!
posted by js on November 3rd, 2005 at 7:07 pmI’m continually amazed that there aren’t marches of poor people burning down homes of the OWS here in Ann Arbor.
Peter: Since I missed your post in the ether, I’ve been ticketed for being parked at 3am in a no 3-6 spot (when I was a resident who didn’t have parking due to construction that tore my driveway up no less!) Meter maids don’t patrol, but cops on drunkwatch do.
posted by js on November 3rd, 2005 at 7:10 pm“Second Ward Republican candidate Tom Bourque said that he believed that residential parking districts are necessary because he’s observed that when they’re implemented, there are no longer any cars parked on the street.”
my office is in a RP district. on a typical day, one side of the street is full, the other side is half full, or 75% utilization.
“So much for residents needing a place to park.”
the empty spaces are critically important to visitors to the RP district. before the RP program went into effect, both sides of the street were full all day every day, leaving no place for delivery, service, and social visitors to leave their vehicles while they did their business.
(i resented the program when it went into effect, ruefully cursing the neighbors whose land grab forced me to walk an extra block or two each day to park, but over time my car has become a hateful thing to me, a stinking, duct-taped, despicable albatross hanging from my neck — yet disappointingly immortal! — which makes the program no less inconvenient but the enemy of my enemy is my friend, so now i am an enthusiastic supporter of RP programs!)
posted by peter honeyman on November 3rd, 2005 at 7:32 pmWhat about metering the residential streets? The 400 block of North Ashley, which is semi-residential, used to be packed every day with commuters. A couple of years ago they installed meters and now there’s always parking available, even though everything to the north and west is now packed with commuter cars. And yes, I’ve also heard some rumblings from residents up that way that they’re curious about the RP program.
But it seems that meters would have a couple of advantages. 1. In theory at least they would make money rather than lose it. (Meters do make money, right?) 2. Anyone could park without having to hassle with a permit. 3. You could set the time allowed (two-hours, four-hours) to suit the needs of the neighborhood. 4. It would more equitably spread out the inconvenience costs, hitting residents as well as visitors. 5. You could continue to have free parking at night, while discouraging long term storage on the streets.
Any comments?
posted by Parking Structure Dude! on November 4th, 2005 at 9:03 amAnd yes, meters are kind of ugly, and you’d have to mow around them, but that’s good in a way because it would force the residents to ask themselves how MUCH they really need those spots available for the nanny and the gardener. Is it worth having a meter in front of the house.
So that’s my proposal: no more RP districts, but we’ll install meters in any neighborhood that votes to have them.
posted by Parking Structure Dude! on November 4th, 2005 at 9:07 amThat at least makes more sense than having cops writing out parking tickets at 3am while people are being mugged on the streets.
posted by Dave on November 4th, 2005 at 10:25 amWell, I’m feeling smug today, so please allow me to say “I told you so”! Somewhere on AAIO is the first article that stated that there was a problem with parking in this area. The problem, of course, is that the homeowners in the area think that the streets are all theirs, and commuters and students should buzz off.
I said then that they’d come up with a plan that would take care of the homeowners, and screw over commuters, students, and business owners. One of the most laughable parts of the plan is that they allow for four spaces per home. Take a walk in the neighborhood and show me the frontages of the homes or apts. that can hold four spaces in front of it! In addition, I got a good laugh from the fact that while the DDA three-site plan needed massive parking studies according to the parking deck opponents, no such study is needed for this parking permit plan. Man, that’s some quality comedy.
I also said that residents in the area would protest the construction of a parking deck in that area to compensate for the loss of parking. You’ll get a “parking problem? There’s no parking problem here. Parking decks are ugly, and we don’t need that kind of eyesore in our neighborhood” from the residents.
This will not be the last neighborhood to install this plan…..particularly as we get closer to the opening of the new dorm where the Frieze building sat….
posted by todd on November 4th, 2005 at 11:40 amLeopold for Council.
posted by js on November 4th, 2005 at 1:56 pmThat’s what I’ve been saying. Write him in for the 5th ward.
posted by Dale on November 4th, 2005 at 2:10 pmCouncil, shoot - Todd for Mayor!
posted by Michael McC. on November 4th, 2005 at 3:46 pmHey Todd, I thought you’d enjoy the fact that your building was envisioned to be replaced with a mid-rise mixed-use structure on the map of Calthorpe’s draft plan last night.
posted by Brandon on November 4th, 2005 at 4:51 pmWell, they had a good run.
posted by Dale on November 4th, 2005 at 5:26 pmLarry, the Greene Street parking restriction is a deal the city has with the University so that the big University busses, trucks, and emergency vehicles can use it to get to campus from their Kipke lot.
posted by Juliew on November 4th, 2005 at 7:23 pmI’d be ecstatic with the idea of implementing the RPP districts with meters. Make them 2 hour meters at 10 cents / hour, with no prohibition on meter-feeding. This would prevent them from being used for storage parking by anybody (residents would get sick of tossing in a dime 5x / day - and why should we encourage resident storage parking if we think it’s a bad thing when people do it on blocks they don’t live on?), meters are awfully cost-effective (once you’ve fixed that loophole of writing a ticket costing more than the revenue from the ticket), and they’re non-discriminatory - Whomever values the parking can pay for it, whether they’re residents of that block or residents of other blocks.
posted by Murph on November 5th, 2005 at 4:35 pmMayor?!
Well, that would make for some entertaining Council meetings…..
I would not make a good Mayor. I would make an even worse Council member. My Dad told me that it’s important to know where your shortcomings are, so there you go…..
And Brandon, I’m sure that our replacement is no accident……..
posted by todd on November 6th, 2005 at 1:40 pmHa. Naw, you just fell into the same category with all the other vacant/one-story sites downtown… maybe we can just keep you guys downstairs and put a few floors of upscale condos on top? ‘though they might not care for the jukebox.
posted by Brandon on November 6th, 2005 at 5:31 pmHas anyone considered a Historic Parking District as a solution. There used to be twin pits on Main Street. I think they should come back.
RE-OPEN THE PITS!!!
posted by A Different Jon on November 6th, 2005 at 8:38 pmMETERS?!??!!??? That’s worse than RP. How about we deal with the fact that some residential neighborhoods near downtown have more cars parking on them, and you sometimes have to go around the block to look for a space? In REAL cities (where RP zones were invented) you have to go that far to find a space and with an RP permit.
I am not persuaded that the RP zone was needed on the Old West Side or Burns or North of Miller, and if you scroll up you will find residents of those areas that agree. The ones who disagree, i.e. who are outraged about not having two spaces in front of their houses for them alone, are just the loudest. Holler back, people. We don’t need more regulated parking in the neighborhoods, more signs, more permitting (twice a year for students!), more cost to the city, more parking tickets.
posted by Buzz on November 17th, 2005 at 10:41 am