the future of downtown parking and why you should care

A lot of the benefits to car-free living remain unconvincing for the vast majority of drivers. Better health, cleaner environment, and more a livable city all sound good, but don't measure up to the collosal sacrifice of reducing auto-dependence. Even the pretty obvious cost savings seems to get muddled. However, no one can argue one luxury of giving up the car: you never have to worry about parking.

Wednesday, Dec 6 the DDA is hosting a community discussion on the future of parking downtown. The AANews didn't list a time or place in their article, but we think it is at the DTE center on Main and Williams. A consultant has already been collecting information for a final report in January on how the Ann Arbor parking system should react to the increase in downtown jobs and residents. The community comments will be included in the final report. Thank heavens we don't have to get involved in that headache! We don't drive downtown so why should we care what happens with parking?

Unfortuantely, finding parking and living with community parking decisions are two separate problems. As much as we may like to gloat over being above the difficulties of finding a Main Street parking spot on the weekend, we have to recognize that parking system decisions affect everyone, not just drivers.

That is why we feel it is important for the carfree and carlite community to be represented at this meeting. We carfree folks depend on a dense and diverse downtown that does not prioritize the storage of vehicles over safe pedestrian routes, adaquate transit provision, and accessible downtown resources.

If you have a little free time tonight, stop by the meeting and let them know there are people living in town without a car and we care what happens to the parking system. We see this as a great time to promote Ann Arbor as supporting carfree lifestyles instead of expansion of more of the same