"Comprehensive Parking Management." That's a Phrase You Might Want to Get Used To.

No doubt you had one eye on the radar and the other on the doings outside your window late yesterday, so maybe you missed an interview with DowntownDallas president John Crawford about the need to "drill down" into the subject of downtown parking. Crawford, though, didn't really speak in specifics...

By Robert Wilonsky

February 12, 2010

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No doubt you had one eye on the radar and the other on the doings outside your window late yesterday, so maybe you missed an interview with DowntownDallas president John Crawford about the need to "drill down" into the subject of downtown parking. Crawford, though, didn't really speak in specifics. He just said that the planners cooking up the new Downtown Dallas 360 plan have decided parking's a bigger issue than originally thought; now the city has to decide how to pay for a separare study.

Here, then, is the presentation that's been put together for Tuesday's meeting of the Economic Development Committee, in which it's explained why parking has become a priority ("The provision of secure, convenient, sheltered and accessible parking for office workers and residents is typically downtown Dallas' key disadvantage when competing with suburban markets for corporate relocations, tenants and residents") and what might be done about.

It's a lengthy laundry list of suggestions big ("Discourage surface parking in favor of structured parking") and small (hipper meters, brighter signs), tangible ("un-bundle parking spaces from leases; promote shared parking through parking district") and amorphous ("'transit-first,' park-once policies -- reverse priority for auto versus transit, pedestrian and bicycles"). And I've found buried within the title of my first novel: Elements of a Dynamic Sign.

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