| Show Problem of Downtown Parking Is One Which Plagues Every City These Days One of the most important problems discussed by the mayors of major western western western west west- ern cities meeting in Salt Lake City Friday and Saturday of last week was that of city traffic and downtown i parking It isn't by any means a problem confined confined con con- coI fined to west coast cities either The same day the mayors were talking about the parking problem here students of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln were riot near-riot inadequate J staging a in protesting f quate parking facilities at the college l They said it was the city's fault because they had no parking space for their cars carsI I and i rd nd so were compelled to park double-park I them then while attending classes Police i officers had started to haul away the 1 parked double-parked cars ears with wreckers when i I Ii the students staged a violent protest l Ii Here in Salt Lake City we are inthe in inthe i. i the midst of efforts by an officially- officially appointed parking council to relieve k downtown parking congestion Some Somer progress has been made but the problem is by no means solved as yet Mayor Fletcher Bowron of Los r Angeles bemoaned the plight of that west coast metropolis where he said the traffic traffic traffie fic fie situation is the worst in the world And Mayor Harley Knox of San Diego took an unusual but thought-provoking thought position positron when he asserted that the downtown downtown downtown down down- town parking problem is insoluble Mayor Knox contended that attempts to solve a city parking situation by off- off street parking are only temporary stopgaps stopgaps stopgaps stop stop- gaps that if contin continued ed will break the taxpayer He said the answer rather than to provide downtown parking facilities is to depend on mass transportation services to transport people to and from the center of the city The trouble with that as a solution solutionis is that if people want to drive their own cars to shop they'll do it whether you want them to or not If parking space downtown is not provided they will either cither make a tangled mess of downtown traffic looking for parking spaces which do not exist or they will go out to suburban suburban suburban ban shopping centers which will certainly spring up to meet the demand of these individuals who insist on driving their cars to shop The point is that you do not provide ride parking space as a convenience for the motorist You provide it to protect downtown property values and tax rates and to prevent traffic congestion And I it appears that were we're either going to I have to solve the parking problem in some manner or see the whole pattern of metropolitan life in America change radically radically perhaps perhaps with great economic loss loss loss-in in the next few decades |
