New Haven Independent

posted by: streever on April 8, 2010  2:39pm

I love having a progressive & innovative alderman representing my ward, and being next door to another one. Great suggestions by Mr Elicker!

Let’s hope the mayor pays attention to this, instead of just pushing his really poorly thought-out parking scheme.

posted by: Chris L on April 8, 2010  2:47pm

Dynamic parking is interesting and appealing in concept however it results in a confusing and frustrating experience for users.  I was in SF a few weeks back for work and had to park a car on the street.  We got out to pay the meter and literally sat there for 5 minutes trying to figure our how much we would owe and when we would have to feed the meter.

I’m all for an improved parking experience in New Haven (both revenue and user experience) however the SF solution is not it.

posted by: Wilton D on April 8, 2010  3:10pm

if the city starts to charge for parking during evening hours they will effectively kill it., I frequent downtown often and would not like to pay twice.

posted by: Pioneer on April 8, 2010  3:18pm

This afternoon, I waited forty-five minutes for a B bus, I guess two or three on the schedule didn’t show up. *If you want more people to take public transit more often, it has to improve. More buses on busy schedules, better quality (people don’t want to hear somebody playing terrible rap music on their cell phone), etc.*

posted by: Jonathan Hopkins on April 8, 2010  4:46pm

Pioneer,
That can really frustrating. Hopefully more people will take transit, which would free up the streets for buses to run more efficiently than they do when there are a ton of cars on the road.

posted by: Threefifths on April 8, 2010  6:13pm

Why should the people pay for parking.We are already pay high taxes. Parking should be free like in West Haven,Orange.Again people wake up stop drinking the crooked two party system kool-aid that keeps pulling more money out of your pocket.

posted by: DingDong on April 8, 2010  8:11pm

Three/fifths:

People should pay for parking because pricing a commodity is the best way to calibrate supply/demand.  There is not enough parking for everyone to have.  Right now, it is being priced under market prices (demand outstrips supply—that’s why it’s so hard to find a parking space).  Dynamic parking means charging the market rate.  This means that parking will be allocated as efficiently as possible.  It’s capitalism - you should love it!  Charging less than market rates is a government handout.

posted by: Beam me up Scotty on April 8, 2010  8:54pm

So it takes new technologies to park a car in New Haven. You need a cell phone to reserve a space and a credit card to pay for it. You probably need to book a month in advance, and with all the middlemen you’ll pay an arm and a leg and probably some other useful part of your anatomy too. You’ll spend 5 minutes on your computer paying your fees at the end of the month until someone hacks in to your account then you’ll spend the rest of your life arguing with BigBailedOut Bank on who’s going to pay the $10 grand that disappeared into the ether in BigBrotherStan, or was it in GoatVilleStan.

It used to be easy. You parked and put a nickel in the slot and went off to do whatever you had to do in town. Taxation was easy and painless. Then it was a dime. Then it was a quarter. Now its a fist full of quarters. A year from now when the city sells off its parking meters it will be a fist full of dollars.

Now it looks like a fistfull of Yalies are needed to form a committee to appoint a committeee to discuss whatever technologies are available to make it even more difficult and more expensive to park a car in New Haven. There will no doubt be a second committee to discuss and review the findings of the first committee, and a third committee to act as arbitrator between the first two committees. Look what a lot we get for our taxes.

Well guess what, boys. I’ll go shop and dine where there are free parking lots out in the suburbs. No hassle there. If you own a business in New Haven you better sell it now before you go broke. Don’t you get it. Revolutions have been started for less.

Elicker. If anyone really got a ticket double parking to pay a ticket at city hall tell them to write a check and send it in by snail mail. 44 cents for a postage stamp and all the time saved not driving downtown. What a bargain.

posted by: streever on April 8, 2010  10:33pm

3/5ths, parking has nothing to do with 2 party system. Dynamic parking is used in countries with 3-4 party systems, that is where it comes from.

Wake up? You wake up man. Seriously, parking infrastructure costs $$$ and takes work. It isn’t part of taxes. Taxes pay for school systems, police, fire, administration, trash pickup, street sweeping. Parking fees pay for parking spots.

If you’re espousing that anti-urban stuff, time to go get a place in the suburbs dude.

posted by: JSJ on April 9, 2010  4:21am

Jonathan- 

I don’t think you understand.  The issue is that scheduled buses randomly fail to show up, not that they’re caught in some overwhelming make-believe crush of traffic on Whalley Ave. 

No-show buses are a huge problem for anyone that needs to be somewhere at a particular time.  And even planning for delays by waiting for an earlier bus is ineffective if several buses in a row fail to show up.  I’ve also encountered 45 minute waits for a bus that scheduled to run every 15 minutes- and then when a bus finally arrives, its packed.

As long as the city bus is viewed as transportation for people with nowhere to go and all day to get there, CT Transit will refuse to improve the service.  And without any effective means of communication between the company and concerned riders, there’s no way to open a discussion.  Would you like proof? I followed this link:
http://www.cttransit.com/Contact/EmailAlerts.asp
to sign up for email updates.  Here’s a portion of the automatically generated response I received.  The second paragraph is hilarious:

“Thank you for signing up with CTTRANSIT’s email update system. You will receive a confirmation email shortly from our automated Email Updates system which will ask you to reply in order to confirm your email address and complete the registration process.

If you do not receive this email within the next 10 minutes please check your spam filter to make sure that emails from lists.recol.net are not blocked. Another reason for not receiving the confirmation email may be that you mistakenly typed the wrong email address in the form and we ask that you try again. “

It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

posted by: JSJ on April 9, 2010  4:31am

Oops- sorry to leave out why that paragraph was funny…  Here’s why:

I checked my inbox for the confirmation. Nothing.

I checked my spam folder: Nothing.

I called CT Transit and they told me that they weren’t sure if the service worked and admitted that the only way to tell if there was a service disruption was to see whether the bus showed up.

posted by: Stuffedbread on April 9, 2010  6:51am

Finally an Alder-person with “smarts” and great ideas. We need more like Elicker.

posted by: I just love a Greek Salad on April 9, 2010  8:45am

Good one Beam me up Scotty!
Your reasoning makes perfect sense.
I for one am moving in mid-May

posted by: Threefifths on April 9, 2010  10:13am

posted by: DingDong on April 8, 2010 9:11pm
Three/fifths:

People should pay for parking because pricing a commodity is the best way to calibrate supply/demand.  There is not enough parking for everyone to have.  Right now, it is being priced under market prices (demand outstrips supply—that’s why it’s so hard to find a parking space).  Dynamic parking means charging the market rate.  This means that parking will be allocated as efficiently as possible.  It’s government handout - you should love it!  Charging less than market rates is a government handout.

No it is call a government cash cow and trough system. You are right it is capitalism but with exploitation of working and poor people.How come people in government don’t pay there share to park.Case and point I see city workers park at the meters and the meter maid will not ticket the car because it as a parking card in the window.You think king John pays for parking. I agree with Beam me up Scotty when he says used to be easy. You parked and put a nickel in the slot and went off to do whatever you had to do in town. Taxation was easy and painless. Then it was a dime. Then it was a quarter. Now its a fist full of quarters. A year from now when the city sells off its parking meters it will be a fist full of dollars.

Now it looks like a fistfull of Yalies are needed to form a committee to appoint a committeee to discuss whatever technologies are available to make it even more difficult and more expensive to park a car in New Haven. There will no doubt be a second committee to discuss and review the findings of the first committee, and a third committee to act as arbitrator between the first two committees. Look what a lot we get for our taxes.

Well guess what, boys. I’ll go shop and dine where there are free parking lots out in the suburbs. No hassle there. If you own a business in New Haven you better sell it now before you go broke. Don’t you get it. Revolutions have been started for less.

He is right on the money. Last You need to read about what happen with the parking meter
scandal. In fact the case was try in New Haven

http://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/26/world/friedman-is-guilty-with-3-in-scandal.html?&pagewanted=all

posted by: streever on April 8, 2010 11:33pm

3/5ths, parking has nothing to do with 2 party system. Dynamic parking is used in Wake up? You wake up man. Seriously, parking infrastructure costs $$$ and takes work. It isn’t part of taxes. Taxes pay for school systems, police, fire, administration, trash pickup, street sweeping. Parking fees pay for parking spots.

with 3-4 party systems, that is where it comes from.

Who sits on the transportation committee.Both partys.Who will get to vote for this Dynamic parking both partys Dude. I am not takling about the Dynamic parking system, I am talking about why should the people pay for parking.

Wake up? You wake up man. Seriously, parking infrastructure costs $$$ and takes work. It isn’t part of taxes. Taxes pay for school systems, police, fire, administration, trash pickup, street sweeping. Parking fees pay for parking spots.

If this is true than how come you have states that have free parking. The problem with you dude!!! is the you are pro two party system. I notice how you testified on geting red light camera.

streever wrote on Mar 10, 2009 10:51 AM:

” As someone who testified in Hartford on this matter, I encourage Representative Lawlor to spend some time with this bill. It addresses virtually all of the privacy concerns that were raised & the incidental concerns as well.

There is no issue of privacy invasion, simply because the camera does not show anything happening in the car.
You should run for Office.

If you’re espousing that anti-urban stuff, time to go get a place in the suburbs dude.

As soon as I can get A suck to buy my house I will Dude!!!

P. S.  You ride a bike How about you paying you fair shares to park you bikes. In fact for all of you bike rides how about this to rise some money.

http://streetsblog.net/2010/03/24/revisiting-the-idea-of-a-bicycle-tax

posted by: ali on April 9, 2010  11:47am

I agree with Chris L - this sounds like it would be overly complicated. People can’t even figure out the street sweeping schedule in order to move their cars despite the multiple signs. Locals might get used to it but visitors will probably be the ones with the most tickets, which is not helpful for revenue generation.

No matter what is done, I still don’t think people will be pushed to use public transportation.  Fact: people like to drive their cars, ALONE. Many people accept sitting in traffic and paying for parking as part of life.  It doesn’t help that bus service is mediocre (you are spot on pioneer, everything you said is so true - I rely on the bus sometimes and it is just…sad)

Unless something tips that balance and makes public transportation the faster and more pleasant experience, people will use it only out of dire necessity.

Nice that people are thinking creatively, I’m not convinced this is the right idea.

posted by: Threefifths on April 9, 2010  12:09pm

streever
3/5ths, parking has nothing to do with 2 party system. Dynamic parking is used in countries with 3-4 party systems, that is where it comes from.

Forgot to tell you. Those countries don’t have a two party system.They have proportional represention.The true voice for the people.

posted by: Jonathan Hopkins on April 9, 2010  5:06pm

JSJ,
Perhaps I’m just lucky to live within a short walk of 3 major bus route stops, so if I’ve ever thought I missed a bus, or the bus didn’t come, I’d just walk down the street to catch another one. So I’ve not had the experience of knowing I was on time for the bus and waiting around for it to never show up. I find it kind of unbelievable that a bus never showing up at all is anything more than extremely rare, but again, maybe I’ve just been lucky.
I would agree that buses not showing up requires a separate solution from merely alleviating traffic back up.

However, a major component, if not the major component, of better transit for everyone is addressing the enormous problems that a private, personal mass transit system operating on an entirely public infrastructure creates in a country like ours. The trolleys used to run in the middle of the street, which allowed them, when needed, to take wide turns that did not effect the geometries of our streets. Today, the buses run on the far right of the road, so when they need to turn they either disrupt the street, our require new, exaggerated geometries to be imposed on our curbs, thus widening the crossing distance for pedestrians and degrading the value of the public realm. Its the same problem for 18-wheelers operating on relatively humble streets, when a century ago that cargo would have been on separated heavy rail lines.
The trolleys also did not have to worry about traffic lights because their weren’t any, so they ran unimaginably efficiently with very few cars and no traffic obstacles. With the growth of automobile use in the early 20th century, problems began to emerge of where to store these vehicles the 95% of the time they’re not in use and how do we circulate them around a pedestrian and rail oriented country. The solutions were destructive, costly and only encouraged more use, which has created a cycle of increasing capacity resulting in increased demand that continues until today with the widening of Whalley Ave, expansion of parking lots on route 34, etc, etc.
Part of the solution comes from the elected officials working for the people who elect them, but the most important part of the role of the citizenry. What made New Haven one of the most prosperous cities in the country was its involved residents, each of whom were active in numerous community organizations that met regularly to tackle the issues of the day. It would be great to snap fingers and get improved service, but sometimes people just have to voluntarily change habits for the betterment of their neighbor with the expectation that everyone follows suite. Transit is greatly underappreciated and underused in this country, so its not wonder service is crap.

This parking plan is a no-brainer; it makes all kind of sense once people get over their own stupidity, it will work out great. If you don’t wanna deal with traffic, parking and car payments just use those things attached to the bottom of your torso.

posted by: Stay Away on April 10, 2010  2:05pm

The message is clear:  If you do not absolutely MUST go to New Haven, be it for great food or any other reason, stay away. 

Going to New Haven for the theater, to a restaurant, or for any other reason is just too costly, stressful and inconvenient.  You go through a hassle to find parking; then you have to walk a long distance to your intended destination; the meters often malfunction (or maybe they are programmed that way) so they cheat you by giving you less time than you paid for ( four quarters is supposed to allow for 48 mins parking, but the meter expired after 36 mins! A ticket is a min of $20!!! and there is no protesting; no one cares that the meter cheated you; it is intended to.

If you do not travel with a ton of quarters, you have to find some then walk back to your car to reload the meter, and again go back to the restaurant or wherever; it is simply a major hassle.  Now they want to charge for night parking!!! Talk about tunnel vision, penny pinching greed. In planning how to gouge people, NH officials should also tally the cost to NH when suburbanites stop coming to NH.

Why would any sane person want to go through all of this grief?  Stay out of New Haven unless you have NO CHOICE! There are great restaurants and other recreational activities in other areas where the parking is most often free, convenient and safer.

posted by: The Professor on April 10, 2010  8:59pm

These arguments that “dynamic parking” will effectively lead people to stop coming downtown is kind of ridiculous. The whole point of the program is to make sure that at any given time, the City is getting the most it can in parking fees without depressing demand for on-street parking too much. 

This is good for several reasons.  It raises money for the city, which will hopefully be put to good use.  As far as quality of life goes, several commenters have pointed out that it’s now impossible to find on-street parking downtown during certain hours.  Having “dynamic” prices will ideally change that—at any given time, there will be a few open spaces, but most spaces will be taken.  That way, the City brings in more money and New Haveners who really really want parking can find it. Dynamic parking would also help mitigate circling-induced congestion.

Ideally, this would also push more people to take public transit, walk, or bike, especially during peak hours. 

I really agree with some of the comments that have been made here about public transit and how much it can suck (that, I think, is the perfect term).  Maybe that’s the next order of business here—think of ways to “un-suck” public transit (perhaps gps on buses, better scheduling, etc?).

posted by: bill Saunders on April 12, 2010  1:14am

The administration will jump all over this idea and claim to be progressive.

In fact, it creates a more obfuscated system, that drives accountability into the nether regions of public policy.  There is nothing King John likes better than diffusing accountability.

In a world of smaller cars and better public transit (i.e. the 3-4 party European system, where gas costs multiples of what it costs here), it makes sense. 

Comparing apples to oranges is always a bad justification.

posted by: Randy Reid on April 13, 2010  4:01pm

It’s great how all the Cities want to improve the way Parking is done at City Lots and On street. Always wanting the latest in technology, but always awarding to the lowest bidder, who can’t even meet the specs in the RFP’s handed out. What ever became of the actual end user The Parker? There are systems out now a days that will also reimburse a Parker time left on their space!! I don’t think the general public would feel they are getting ripped off if they got money back for parking time not used.
Maybe the decision of the final equipment should be decided by the General Public who will be using the system and not the Consultants, and the City Employed bureaucrats just getting “Greased” to accept these so called state of the art systems, that are cheap and don’t work. The saying “You get what you pay for” is so true in this industry.
The “Pay By Phone” and “Credit Card” and “Chip Card” and “Pay By Lic Plate” are not that new, they have been used in Europe for many years, it just takes awhile for it to reach North America.
Everyone should really do their research before awarding the contract to the So Called Lowest Bidder, if you were to by a new car and the price from most of the dealers where very close, and another dealer came in thousands cheaper, do you not think something may be missing in the whole picture? Just a little something to think about City Purchasers!!!