Business owners: Transportation is the reason that I avoid this neighborhood like the plague. Very few bus lines serve the neighborhood, and they serve it infrequently, so I would have to drive. And if I'm lucky enough to find parking at all, it's several blocks from where I want to go. I don't mind paying a couple bucks to park, but I do mind driving around for 10 minutes looking for a spot.

It might be nice if Cara Mico would have spent a little less time puffing about Adams' legacy to address what I feel is the obvious elephant in the room. As far as I'm aware, our fair city is still locked into an out-of-state, privatized contract of our parking meter services to those shadow companies that paid bribes to Ellis McCoy and still hide behind the shell name of Cale Parking Systems. Neither were indited in Ellis' case, even though he plead guilty, and so one can only assume that they would benefit greatly from this deal. "Parking Wars" seems like the perfect distraction, not to mention the line about PBOT trying to "shore up it's leaky finances." Exactly where is the leak flowing? Thanks for the legacy Sam.

http://www.bizjournals.com/portland/news/2…

Um. Very few bus lines? Are you high?
15, 20, 77, Max in walking distance (no seriously from 18th it's not a bad walk) and the streetcar.

The mayor reqeers new apartments to have no parking. Is that so there is no competition for parking meters?

I'm with Torgo. Parking is insane in NW. This also might be unpopular with bicyclists, which I am one of their ranks, but it's time we start collecting user-fees for bicyclists.

People are going to start asking questions why we allow free bike parking (with so many "free" bike corrals going in) on street right of ways while cracking down on free car parking.

Nothing too onerous, but it's only fair and will only strengthen the bike community in Portland (I am always miffed why so many bicyclists balk at something simple like a $5 bike tire fee that goes directly to funding more bike lanes in the city).

More $ into PBOT means more bike lanes. Hopefully fully separated lanes like in Chicago, NYC, Vancouver, etc. not these poor-man's lanes we have with a few stripped lanes.

How about a campaign for more people to take up skateboarding in order to eliminate so many bicycles? Just try and charge parking for skateboards, fuckheads.

I find it amusing that this plan is supported by residents and opposed by businesses. The meters might actually help some types businesses by ensuring that spots are available but how cold they possibly help residents? I heard a resident saying that he couldn't find a spot after 10pm. Who from outside the neighborhood is parking there after 10pm...NObody. Commuters also cause few problems for residents as they tend to leave by 4-5pm the same time residents come back home. For residents this is nothing more than a tax which is bound to go up in proce at a rate faster than inflation.

Also, most commuters will have permits anyway as they work in the neighborhood's boundaries. I doubt many commuters who park there actually work downtown, a few in the Northern Pearl maybe but I doubt these people fill more than a hundred or so of the 10k spots available. Also, there is a distinct lack of transit from northwest wash county area to downtown and the pearl. you want to reduce commuter parking then add transit for these people. The only viable option they have now is to park at sunset tc which has almost 700 spots and is full by 7:30am. This forces people to drive and park downtown, sometimes in the nw district.

Look, quit trying to modify behavior. That never works. People prefer to drive cars than to cram into the packed, sluggish trolley or sit with a bunch of diseased idiots on the bus. Just build the high rise parking structures to support the demand, and then consumers will support the local business, and residents can park their second biggest expenditure on the street where jealous vandals can key the paint.

Rollergirl, "quit trying to modify behavior" might be one of the more ridiculous things I've read in a while. Every law ever passed, every marketing campaign ever undertaken, every protest, every exchange of currency for goods or services, almost everything any of us ever do of any consequence is meant to "modify behavior." Your statement is so over-broad that it is laughable. "Just build the high rise parking structures?" Who, exactly, is supposed to just do that? Why don't you just build the high rise parking structures? If it's so obvious that the demand would offset the cost, then this seems like an opportunity that you really shouldn't pass up.

How's that so-called, "War on Drugs" coming along? What about all those apartments being built that the City won't allow parking in? (See recent article here someplace).

The plans should have included parking in the first place. People do pay for parking. The conflict is that the City itself want's the revenue from low cost parking meters, as opposed to private enterprise making a profit off the additional costs of construction for parking levels in the apartment complexes.

People are not so clamoring to go Uptown, that they are about to scrap their cars, go out and buy a bike, and ride in the rain, just for the privilege of making the scene. If the idea is to make Northwest an exclusive slum, then welcome to it.

The time for maintaining infrastructure such as roads, is during times of economic booms. What did Sam Adams do with the money when he had it? He remolded the Stadium which was already in perfect condition for the all American sport of baseball which had full attendance, in order to modify everybody's behavior to become more internationally minded and watch soccer which nobody could really give a rat's fucking ass about. Maybe the Mayor's intent was to find a way to make people stay away from downtown? Business has certainly been hurt by the elimination of baseball. Fans used to go out to eat after the games, but now, restaurants are empty. That certainly ought to clear out plenty of parking spaces, the dumbshit.

"Portland planners in the 1980s and early 1990s were worried about the "suburbanization" of central neighborhoods. Led by then-Commissioner Charlie Hales, now Portland's mayor-elect, city council removed the mandatory parking rules for many neighborhoods with frequent transit service."

Parking the Problem
Portland's Low-Car Building Boom Angers Neighbors
by Sarah Mirk

http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/pa…

With three unanswered comments in a row, you're starting to look like a crazy person...

So, what's your point?

Everything that Adams and Hales touches turns to shit.

Why would anyone expect comments to be answered? If there was a question asked, then that might, of course, be a different matter.