A diverse downtown Tacoma should have room for parking
If there’s one general aggravation about visiting downtown Tacoma, it’s lack of parking.
But city officials have a simple solution: Just don’t drive. It’s a catchphrase that hasn’t made it to bumper sticker status, but give it time.
The city’s goal is a downtown with fewer car bumpers on which to put those stickers. One sure way to meet that objective is to choke off parking choices.
The philosophy is this: Scarce downtown parking means people will be motivated to seek other means of transportation. Call it social engineering through urban planning.
We believe it’s a tactic with a probability for backfire.
City Manager Elizabeth Pauli recently explained to a News Tribune reporter that when faced with fewer parking options, people will be encouraged to “walk, bike and take a bus or the Link downtown.”
But Pauli’s list is missing something: The city’s lack of parking will also encourage some people to stay away.
“There is rarely any space open for visitors,” one Broadway condominium resident wrote in a recent letter to the editor. “I no longer invite people for lunch or dinner because of this deplorable situation.”
Sporadic parking with one- and two-hour limits is hardly inviting, and many of the mass transit schemes intended to remedy Tacoma’s parking problem are in the blueprint stage.
A 2.4-mile extension of light rail service to Hilltop is pegged for 2022, and the big connection to Federal Way and points north is scheduled for 2030, assuming all goes smoothly and costs stay within budget – no sure thing with Sound Transit projects.
What do we do between now and the car-less nirvana some envision?
Six years ago the city toyed with the idea of a new parking structure just north of the Elks Lodge. The garage was slated for 250 spaces, enough to accommodate McMenamins’ bars and restaurants, retail spaces and 44 hotel rooms, but in a short-sighted decision, city officials said they couldn’t justify using a state grant to build it.
The city sold the empty lot to McMenamins for $1 million.
To date, the hotel chain hasn’t committed to developing the site for a multistory parking garage. Owner Mike McMenamin, whose Elks Lodge venue is slated to open next year, told the TNT that people get used to not driving rather quickly. Maybe.
Getting people out of their comfortable cars isn’t easy. Talk of greenhouse gases and rising sea levels hasn’t made a dent in most Americans’ driving habits. Even rising gas prices haven’t deterred drivers much if at all.
Proponents of a car-less culture believe the best way to get people to stop driving is to make parking an excruciatingly frustrating experience. Psychologists recognize this as “behavior modification through adverse stimuli.”
We call it negligent, especially at a time when the buzz words for urban planning are “equitable, inclusive and convenient.”
Those three words don’t apply when folks of a certain age are forced to walk up Tacoma’s steep hills and across wet crosswalks. Yes, they can take the bus, when it’s running, or they can take a Pierce County shuttle, but only if they qualify.
Anne Taufen, associate professor of urban studies at the University of Washington, Tacoma, says the city’s goal of increasing Tacoma’s walkability must be coupled with concerns for mobility.
“We have a significant, and growing 65+ population,” she tells us, “and the time and resources to walk, use intermittent transit, or use on-demand services tend to be highest for those with higher incomes.”
Future economic development must take into consideration a variety of demographic groups, and some of those groups include drivers. When the citizen Parking Technical Advisory Group meets with city officials later this year, they need to make a strong case for more downtown parking.
A lack of parking won’t bother members of the Uber generation. They have a smartphone app for every pesky problem the 21st Century throws their way, including getting around in a city.
But an urban utopia shouldn’t be just for hipsters; planners should also consider people whose hips aren’t so good.
We acknowledge the virtues of the city’s endgame; a downtown free from cars is a downtown with less pollution and gridlock. Pedestrians and cyclists infuse a city with vibrancy, and using premium downtown real estate to store cars pleases no one’s aesthetic.
But if Tacoma wants to grow economically and culturally, it must create infrastructure for pedestrians, transit riders and, yes, motor vehicle users.
This story was originally published June 2, 2018 at 1:00 PM with the headline "A diverse downtown Tacoma should have room for parking."