Monday, June 12, 2006

San Jose Parking Update

Last week, Josh and I met with Bill (who put the SJ downtown parking petition online) and went to the City Council. Bill had already primed the Dept. of Transportation that we'd be there and the Director of the department was on hand to meet with us. Each of us addressed the council during the open forum section. Open forum speakers go in order of when their cards are received. We were sandwiched between 2 lunatics who ranted, which made us either look good in comparison, or else lumped us in with the weirdoes. Regardless, I think that the council was receptive.
Afterwards we meet with the director and he assured us that the ban on motorcycles in the city-managed parking garages was on its way to being reversed. In fact you can now park in the Coty Hall underground garage. He said they were fine-tuning the garage gate sensors and that all the garages would be within compliance shortly. Also, he said the new garage across from City Hall would have specific motorcycle parking spaces in it.

While I was pleased about that, I did tell him how important designated on-street parking for motorcycles is, especially for scooters who are smaller and more apt to be moved by motorists looking for parking, or backed into by oblivious drivers. I told him that I would like to present him with suggestions on places where we think motorcycle parking could be places without removing car spots.

So, I'm asking our fellow scooter/motorcycle riders to keep an eye out and send me an email with locations that you think could be turned into motorcycle parking. The red spot on Devine across from Germania by Trials is a given, but let's see what else we can come up with. How about So. 1st street? How about near the blank club? I want to go out & take photos and annotate a map to present to the DOT.

Thanks & happy scooting,

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