Item A: Downtown Parking - Laserfiche WebLink

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Attachment E My vote is free parking in downtown garages on Saturday, Sunday, and evenings. The goal is to increase night life and weekend visitors to downtown. Our 'in a nutshell' thoughts on downtown parking are that there is no true problem with having meters or the number of spaces available. HOWEVER, Eugeneans use the issue of parking as a ready excuse to not use their downtown, and thus a problem is created. Any effort to change these negative views is welcome. I am a strong proponent for the elimination of parking meters in the downtown area; specifically near our school (between 7th and 8th on Willamette). I would even consider a combination of both the metered parking and free parking zones. There should be more meters towards the core of downtown (for small shops etc) but for the Hult Center and my business we really need to have free parking zones. Since our classes are an hour long and we want to give our students time to relax after class instead of rushing out the door. The same goes for the Hult Center since they hold shows which may go on for more than two hours. In addition, I request that we increase the security in the Parcade across the street from us. Safety is the number one issue that comes to mind when utilizing the Parcade; why not fix the security cameras or hire someone to patrol? Many customers complain of the downtown parking. I have directed many to the garage, but they don’t want to walk from there, or they are just popping in. Then they worry about their meters. So meanwhile they are not really shopping, but clock watching. Now having no time limit on the parking might also pose a problem, stay all day kind of thing. Some where there should be a happy medium. Perhaps 2hr parking, with no meter, gross violations being ticketed. We really need free parking downtown if we want to have shoppers down here! My customers remark on a daily basis how annoying and difficult it is to do business downtown because of the parking. And that’s with Free parking provided at our own lot! Can the city really be making much profit from the meters by the time you factor in maintenance of the meters, paying the meter readers, plus benefits, plus administrative costs, etc....? and it creates a very user - unfriendly atmosphere for downtown shoppers. Also, I would like to point out that both Santa Cruz, CA (where I used to work downtown) and Boulder, CO; cities with very similar demographics to Eugene have been through the same thing many times in the past 20 years. Talk to their downtown associations. They have flipped back and forth on paid/ free parking downtown. Every time the parking is paid, the shoppers leave. Free parking helps bring them back. And. they don't have panhandling! (They have past rules against it....) Both cities have much more vibrant, active, and populated downtowns than we do! (In spite of indoor malls in both places.) They have found ways to still have all segments of the population use the downtown core in a friendly, non combative way. There are still people playing music on every street corner, hanging out on benches, the teenagers hang around but don't beg, and they have free parking, and lots of shoppers, restaurant patrons, etc. Let’s get it together and stop letting downtown Eugene be a frightening place to go for half our population. Its here for ALL of us, not just the vocal minority. We are particularly impacted by the tour busses that park on Willamette for a McDonald Theatre Show. I really don’t have a solution to that one as there really is no Parking for the tour buses anywhere nearby, unless they were to use a parking lot perhaps by the library…but that isn’t a city lot is it. It's time for the city to address changes in parking, since obviously the citizens continue to see it as a problem. While the city uses parking as a revenue source, creating some