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I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard fellow Berkeleyans holding forth on the difficulty of parking downtown. The complaint puzzles me, since I almost always find a space at the city’s Center Street garage.  

At last Thursday’s workshop on downtown parking, sponsored by the Transportation Commission, I discovered that my personal impression is backed up by numerous studies, including a March 2005 report that postdates the closure of the Hinks garage. Except for weekdays between noon and 3 p.m., there’s ample parking in downtown garages. On a typical weekend evening, said Transportation Commission Chair Rob Wrenn, “a thousand spaces go begging.” Even during crunch time, only some garages may reach 90 percent or a bit more capacity on some weekdays for a period ranging from a few minutes to two to three hours.  

So it was disconcerting to hear leaders of the Downtown Berkeley Association argue that the $3.5 million Vista parking mitigation funds should all go toward the $10 million that it would cost to add 411 spaces to the city’s Center Street garage when that facility is seismically retrofitted. What matters most, contended DBA Treasurer John DeClercq, is people’s perception that there’s not enough parking in the garages.  

Perception does matter. But instead of pandering to ignorance, why not educate the public? BDA, in league with the Chamber of Commerce and the city’s Office of Economic Development, ought to launch a “myth vs. reality” campaign that publicizes the actual availability of parking in downtown garages. “Parking educators” could spread the word through formal presentations at neighborhood association meetings around town. Ads in the local press and articles in the city’s newsletter would also be a good idea.  

Beyond education, we need better management. After the workshop, the Transportation Commission approved the first phase of a parking information guidance system that, when fully implemented, will use computer-driven signs to tell drivers how many spaces are available in specific downtown parking facilities at any one moment. Berkeley, of all places, ought to enjoy the benefit of such sophisticated technology, which has long been employed in many European cities and some American ones.  

Then there’s the inadequate enforcement of on-street parking. It turns out that the real shortage in downtown parking is not in the garages but on the street, and that it’s largely due to meter-feeding by employees of downtown businesses. This was the revelatory finding of the fall 2002 study conducted by Professor Betty Deakin, director of the UC Berkeley Transportation Center, and her students. At Thursday’s workshop Deakin, emphasizing the lost sales tax and meter revenue, called meter-feeding “a very serious problem that the city needs to start addressing.” 

One way to do so, she said, would be to provide transit passes to all downtown employees, while addressing the financial challenges that such an arrangement would present to smaller businesses. Rob Wrenn has suggested using some of the Vista parking mitigation monies to fund a pilot program along these lines. At Thursday’s meeting, North Berkeley resident Austene Hall told how in Providence, R.I., she had recently encountered a city employee with a gizmo that recorded both a specific vehicle’s license number and its length of stay in a parking space. We could use that machine in Berkeley. We could also use vandal-resistant parking meters that work. Let’s hope that the new ones on Shattuck Avenue are tougher than their predecessors. (And how about gearing old and new alike to a maximum 90 minutes instead of an hour?)  

My own dubious gripe about downtown parking has to do with the new rates in the Center Street garage. Since the first free hour was replaced with a charge of $1.50, rising at 61 minutes to $3, I’ve often parked in a nearby neighborhood. (Little-known fact: The first 15 minutes are still free.) At Thursday’s workshop, I felt a twinge of guilt when central Berkeley resident Carrie Sprague complained about people parking in her neighborhood to avoid paying to park downtown. City staff report that since the new rates were put in, use of the Center Street garage has declined. In fact, the rates are still below-market: On weekdays, the private garage on Allston charges $2.50 per hour or a fraction thereof.  

I know I should park in a garage or, better yet, take the bus downtown. I am negotiating these matters with my inner environmentalist.  

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Kudos to Councilmembers Anderson, Maio, Spring and Worthington for opposing Mayor Bates’ scheme to rezone Ashby Avenue and Gilman Street west of San Pablo Avenue for retail. At the council’s April 12 meeting, Maio asked that the motion then on the floor, to approve the Planning Department’s work priorities for fiscal year 2006, be amended to provide that in the event of such rezoning, the balance of industrial, commercial and residential uses mandated by the West Berkeley Plan would be maintained. The maker of the motion, Councilmember Capitelli, rejected Maio’s request. Spring then severed the rezoning issue from the main motion, forcing a vote on the rezoning alone.  

The mayor did his best to squelch the dissent. First he tried to cut off discussion by invoking the rarely used “20 minute rule,” only to be told that it didn’t apply because a motion was on the floor. Next he called for a vote on whether to sever the rezoning, only to be informed that severing is not subject to a vote.  

The rezoning was approved as a fiscal year 2006 priority. Councilmember Moore, disregarding the interests of his West Berkeley constituents, gave the Bates’ faction its fifth, tie-breaking vote.  

Zelda Bronstein, a former chair of the Berkeley Planning Commission, is still active in Berkeley politics. ª