Free parking in downtown San Carlos is great - it's free - but it has a lot of downsides:
- It makes your arrival time less predictable, since you don't know whether you'll find a space quickly or after 15 minutes.
- You have to circle for a long time to find a space. That means more cars on the road.
- Most cars burn gasoline so more circling means more noise and pollution.
- Circling for a space is really stressful! It's one of the most stressful things I do. I don't like doing it.
Paid parking can help solve these problems. The goal of charging for parking isn't the money - which can be refunded to residents, or reinvested in road repair - it's to ensure there's always a free space available, which reduces circling and makes arrival times predictable. It may get expensive - up to $3 or $4 per hour - but it has these benefits:
- You don't have to circle for a space.
- Your arrival time is more predictable.
- There's less air pollution from cars burning gasoline.
- (If the City owns the lot) There would be more revenue for things like repairing roads, adding bike lanes and more frequent transit to downtown.
Right now every single downtown parking space in San Carlos is free. If you love circling 10-15 minutes for a space, great - you can keep doing that, almost all of the spaces are going to stay that way, feel free to stop reading.
If you think circling for a space is time-consuming, polluting, and stressful, can you ask the San Carlos City Council to designate a small number of spaces - say, 40 out of 500 - as paid parking spaces, with the price fluctuating based on demand? You can copy/paste to email all of them: bgrassilli@cityofsancarlos.org, cjohnson@cityofsancarlos.org, molbert@cityofsancarlos.org, rcollins@cityofsancarlos.org, mgrocott@cityofsancarlos.org
Alternatively, the Caltrain lot is a paid parking lot, but right now to pay, you have to walk onto the platform and then walk back downtown. Can you ask the Caltrain board to install a pay-for-parking machine at ECR and Cherry Street? This will make it easier to park, pay and walk downtown. Contact the board: board@caltrain.com, and the CAC: cacsecretary@caltrain.com.