Many of you are personalizing the situation. The fact is that if you talk to
the business owners who rely on their business to live, they are down. Some of
them are holding out hope that in the long run the parking will pay off.
Before the parking went into effect I know a couple of downtown residents that
parked 2 or 3 cars on Cookman, leaving them there for days at a time.
Similarly, we used to watch the owners/employees of stores park their cars in
front of their stores all day, yet they still complained they had no business.
And while we all know that the riots of July 4 are the traditional date that
started the decay of Asbury as a downtown shopping mecca, it was the malls and
free parking that had an equally bad affect on downtowns in Red Bank and Long
Branch as well as Asbury. And it has been mentioned, where is the marketing for
downtown AP? There is none, other than a weekly huge email from the city, that
basically promotes bars and restaurants. All, 100% of the business owners I
know and have recently spoken with about the parking are/were in favor of the
paid parking, but that doesn't change the fact that they are going to have a
helluva time coming up with the Nov 1 rent check.
And there is another issue that is not being discussed. The business owners and
their employees who work after dark, who work until 10PM and later. They now
have to walk 3-4-5 blocks to their cars at night. I have been told that one
person has already been accosted and robbed while walking to their car. While
paid parking is a fruitful plan, the fruit needs to start out as seeds, or it's
artificial; the implementation of park; The Parking Plan, is either
non-existent, or artificial.
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