While I sympathize with your parking problems, there are parts of your argument that are unsupportible.
What makes your neighborhood any different than my downtown neighborhood? We are the parking lot for a lot of non residents who are going downtown. We have a critical parking permit zone, AND we have to pay $25. to get a permit. But this does not guarantee a parking spot because the hours of "enforcement" are not long enough, "enforcement" is not adequate, and most Minneapolis drivers park as if they either don't know what a critical parking zone is, or they don't really care. Part of your parking problem will be mitigated when the MTC completes the LRT line down to Ft. Snelling and the Mall of America with the Park and Ride lots there. What I don't hear in your argument is placing much responsibility for the parking problems on the city of Minneapolis. The city should have anticipated the problems you are enduring every day. This should have been done during the planning and negotiation stages with the MTC. If a critical parking zone was a selected alternative solution, it should have been in place when the LRT line started operations. If another solution was selected, then there should have been adequete public meetings with the affected neighbors to allow for public imput and communication. Instead, the city staff appeared to not have the parking impacts of LRT stations on their radar screens. To allow neighborhood residents to fight it out with LRT users is very troubling. The city should be several things, but turns out to be absent without cause. The city should be an advocate for the neighborhoods' interests against those of a regional unit of government. The city should maintain order instead of taking a "it's not my job" approach to the conflict of residents and commuters. The city should be proactive and anticipate potential problems and plan for them with any future development. It is my position that there is not much concern for such problems at the level of the policy makers. And at the staff level, they respond to such problems from the perspective of parking lot owners. What is missing is the a perspective that protects the citizens. David Wilson Loring Park REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
