Sam's power point regarding parking in Hawthorne Neighborhood.

I live off of Hawthorne and really appreciate this effort. For example, street trash and a lack of garbage cans are a problem. I can see that the revenue generated by this could help solve the problem. Business owners on Hawthorne need to recognize that if they don't help to improve the conditions their success has caused that they will lose neighborhood support. The "no meters" on Hawthorne folks are short sighted unless they have a plan (and the money) to deal with the issues that they are creating.

JK:To understand Sam’s push for parking meters we need to understand that most planners are on a jehad against cars. Their long range plan is to make driving so difficult and expensive that we will switch to wasteful transit. That is why they advocate certain things:

1) Reduce road capacity by not building new roads as our population increases.
2) Reduce road capacity by actually removing lane-miles. Examples of this include Front ave. being reduced from four lanes two.
3) Reduce road capacity by reverting one-way couplets to two way. This also increases accidents, but planners seldom care about safety.
4) Increase congestion by adding extended curbs which make buses stop in the driving lane, force right turning vehicles to block traffic as they slow to turn. A side effect that they don’t like to talk about is encouraging peds to stand closer to fast moving traffic, increasing the chances of a collision.
5) Increase cost of driving. One example is Leonard’s gasahol mandate for Portland that will probably make gas more expensive and cause spot shortages. Actually it may increase driving as we have to drive out of Portland to get real gas. (I recommend getting gas in Vancouver to keep the tax money away from departments that use it against us - they still build road capacity over there)
6) PARKING METERS everywhere. Both increases the cost of driving and provides money for the toy trains.

There is more to this plan, but I forgot the details.

Bottom line: the real purpose of parking meters is to force people to get out of their cars and to waste time on transit. Unfortunately, it will be the poor who are hurt most, but Portland’s planners have been screwing the poor for years.

The sickness of this whole plan becomes obvious when you realize that buses use more energy than cars, pollute more and cost more. The planers are still using 1970's data when buses saved energy, but since then buses gradually got worse and cars got dramatically better. Planners are too stupid to get modern data because it would interfere with their religion. The other part of their dogma, light rail costs too much and does too little.

Thanks
JK

I agree with Jim. It's ridiculous to suggest you will "help business" by charging motorists to park in a neighborhood that currently offers free parking.

The only businesses that will benefit are the competing shopping malls and "free parking" adjacent neighborhoods.

It's almost as if the mall based retailers were the invisible hand at City Hall.

MEMO TO SAM: let's jackhammer holes into half of the streets downtown and see if we can encourage more people to shop in the suburbs!

P.S. Eliminating free parking in active neighborhoods will be good for business...

Love,

Your friends at Washington Square, Lloyd Center, CTC, Bridgeport Mall, and Lake Oswego. Wooo-hooo!

Oh Sam, this was a really, really bad presentation (IMHO) not only is it full of mis-information and spin (spins like a top) - but the worse part is that (last I heard) a VAST majority of businesses in the area have signed a petition asking that there be no meters. Of course it will be another example of 'how much wiser the folks in city hall are' - no need to listen to the people who live and work there, nope, government knows best and will shove it down their throats kicking, screaming and gagging all the way.

Please quit doing a Don Quixote and creating menances so that you can slay them. Please just repair my streets, reduce congestion (not with more toy trains and streetcars), lock up criminals and keep them there, help the elderly and infirmed. It would be truly a blessing if city government just focused on that and did a REALLY good job of that. I know I'm just spitting in the wind, but to me, THAT is what government is really all about.

If parking meters are forced into onto Hawthorne, I for one will take the business I do there elsewhere. Furthermore, if pay to park on Hawthorne does occur, those same charges MUST also apply to all the bike racks, the bicycle oasis and any place a bicyclist parks a bicycle on public property along Hawthorne.

My god that was a long PP presentation. Slides with just "yes" on them? PP disease gone rampant!!

My worry here is that one book has changed Sam's mind without any consideration of alternatives. Another fad?

This PowerPoint presentation seems to focus entirely on the inconvenience that businesses will suffer, and not enough on the inconvenience that residents will suffer. Many houses in the Hawthorne area lack a driveway, and will no doubt pay a heavy toll once people figure out that they can park a block off Hawthorne and not pay for the parking meter. Will these residents have to buy parking permits so that they can pay for the luxury of parking in front of their own homes? Will people with communal parking lots (apartment renters, condos) be exempted?

What about out of town visitors who come to stay for the weekend--will they be ticketed for parking longer than 2 hours? Will I have to buy visitor permits? Will I have to tell my friends that they need to drop whatever they are doing and move their car every couple hours? What about my older parents who come over to babysit while my wife and I are out? Etc., etc., etc. The list goes on, yet none of these are answered by the presentation. Residents will pay a heavy cost in one way or another--either indirectly, through more people parking off of Hawthorne/Belmont, or directly, through parking permits.

I took a walk along SE Hawthorne. I saw a lot of "NO Parking meters" signs. I did not see one "YES" sign.

Sam, if you want to install meters by fiat, just do it. At least be honest and give us the real reason behind it.

Don't think people believe you when you say you are the vox populi. We really don't need another Vera.

I understand the City is planning to completely phase out their parking permit program. They have already done away with it in the Lloyd District where I live effective the New Year (Happy New Year) so they could pay for the proposed streetcar that is going down 7th. It's not enough that they already have a MAX train going by, now they need a streetcar and to hell with you should you happen to own a vehicle! I am just going to have to park my car on the north side of Broadway/Weidler and hope that nobody has it towed. BTW, what are the rules to have a car parked for several days on end without it being moved? Is it illegal? I am fed up and giving serious thought to moving back to Beaverton.