Jack, I'd like you to meet my friend Avi Adelman of Barking Dogs here in Dallas. His neighborhood has been completely taken over with dolts parking on neighborhood streets because they don't want to pay for parking to go to their favorite bars, and then dropping all sorts of digestion and assimilation byproducts on lawns, sidewalks, front porches as they stagger back. He's a big advocate of parking permits for resident-only parking areas, but with an emphasis on their being free, or at least covered by property taxes. Charging permit fees for parking in front of your own house and then having no guarantee that your space won't be taken over by some dolt? No way.

I thought I understood the rage implicit in the profanity "Go by streetcar!" from my days in SW, when apartment owners rented out their spaces to Lincoln High students and told their tenants that "you don't need a car in Portland anyway." This, though, can be solved with one of two solutions. The city can acknowledge that parking IS an issue, and that maybe not every strip of land had to be given to developers and turned into more hipster playground and big-box apartment buildings. Or it can watch everyone, residents and businesses alike, flee those areas and never come back. At times, I really do think that Sam Adams bases his policy decisions on too many repeat viewings of The Producers.

Yea right, 'cause the parking meters are SO successful every place else in town! They really encourage commerce and development and parking to go and do stuff.
Has no one but me noticed that downtown is empty a good deal of the time, and that you can find parking nearly any time of the day or night in downtown?

Glad I have my house on a quite residential street, with my own driveway, decent school, true single-family zoning. Had to stretch on the mortgage to get in there.

But in Portland, you have to pay dearly for each increment of livability, despite our egalitarian blue-collar pretensions.

If you live in less expensive, less influencial areas, or god-forbid you live near any busy street, the city will just chip away at your livability, one policy at a time.

We live on a street not far from a MAX stop and people use our 2 streets as a Park & Ride. It's fine, I don't really mind that people use it to get to a Blazers game or similar. The issue I have is when people use our streets for days or weeks when flying somewhere. So part of me understands the desire to use street permits. But the lengths this city will go to nickel and dime the people does become infuriating.

We are a very car-light family (don't own, occasionally use ZipCar) so it doesn't really matter to use directly, but I want people to be able to use mass transit effectively and cheaply. Long story short, I'm definitely not smart enough to solve this problem, but I don't think the City is likely to take my interests into considerations when trying to, and that's incredibly disappointing.

JakeM, you hit a number of good points. And, if I've been one of those parking on or near your street, I do it a) many days while going to work, and b) going to events at the Rose Quarter, downtown or the Zoo. Here's the rub - I can walk the mile and half in 30-40 minutes from my house to the Max stop - take close to an hour if I want to do some bus/walk combo - or drive to the station in NE Portland in five minutes. Me and my stomach don't do buses well, especially if I want to use the transit time to read. And, in my neighborhood, it takes a transfer to get to the Rose Quarter. All of us who ride public transit should make sure that the honchos at Tri-Met understand that every moment of our lives is valuable, and the added time caused by service cuts is not appropriate. Oh, wait, I'm dreaming.

Like others have commented on this blog, as jobs dry up or move to more reasonable areas like Hillsboro or Denver, so too will those of us who can afford to move do so. This really does not bode well for the small businesses in those areas where the City has decided parking meters are in order.

Which is pretty much everywhere any retail business is done.

They've already got that turnstile on your house. They just call it a water meter.

Has no one but me noticed that downtown is empty a good deal of the time, and that you can find parking nearly any time of the day or night in downtown?

Isn't the point of parking meters to ensure that there's always someplace to park?

"Has no one but me noticed that downtown is empty a good deal of the time"

Like that has nothing to do with pay-for parking everywhere there aren't train tracks.

The good thing about meters is that now all the hipsters who rent will actually get to pay for the CoP nonsense.

I'm sure their landlords were covering that overhead for them before as a courtesy :)

But some neighbors aren't convinced that a $45-per-year parking permit is needed.

Sure there are some in the city convinced that this will be a great way to generate more revenue... and now a budget needed for convincing the neighbors. This is just like the city, to set up a situation that makes parking more difficult.

Pick pocket the people with every possible idea. The long range plan may not be a turnstile on the front door of every house, but on every little unit they are planning we all should live in. Am afraid young ones will be carefully taught to see yards as wasteful, so tiny units will be accepted. Good planning, more units squeezed in, more revenue for pet projects?

If the map is to be believed, they are cutting Ladd's Addition in half. Does it seem odd to anyone else that the western half of the central circle would require permits, while the eastern half would not? Many homes in Ladd's lack garages, for that matter.

The city will have to take this much further out to stop commuters from taking advantage of free parking. Folks regularly park around Holman's at 27th, and then use their free or subsidized TriMet passes to take Line #14 the rest of the way in.

We must all remember: cars are evil!

In other words, many of the people "saving the planet" by riding on the train, get there in a car.

First, the CoP meters parking around the eastside trolley, then steals the money for the trolley debt. Then the displaced parking moves several blocks to avoid the meter parking, then the residents have to pay $45 dollar for a parking sticker, and that money gets siphoned for the trolley. Double taxation. Why doesn't the trolley pay for itself since it is so wonderful? Please charge/collect the appropriate rider ticket costs of around $7 per ride and stop foisting the charges in insidious ways to others.

In SoWhat, the parking meter revenue is all going to the trolley. Same in The Pearl.

We keep having the proliferation of parking permit neighborhoods like Lair Hill, GooseHollow, NW Portland....the list goes on. And the "nickle, dime" is another Portland motto. Exit right or left.

I've owned a house downtown for 8 years and I am relieved that they are charging more for parking, the Rose Festival this year required us to call the tow truck 2 times to tow vehicles that blocked in our work truck.

If you want to park for free downtown, touch cookies, either move into the area, bike or park and ride the light rail. I'm not going to have you GOP freeloaders with your SUVs taking our damn parking spaces anymore.

How about all the arrogant liberal free loaders?funny the Republicans get blamed but its. Ok for Democrats to do the same thing?its amazing the hypocrisy of Portland liberals.

I'm not going to have you GOP freeloaders with your SUVs taking our damn parking spaces anymore.

Parking wasn't near the problem it is now until city council policies took a substantial amount of the street parking away from the downtown core.

Perhaps you need to take a light rail trip at night, you might reconsider suggesting this.

Some of us do not feel safe in the lonely 8th floor elevator and concrete canyon of a parking structure either.

It is not that simple to just take mass transit, for some that would entail hours of tedious connections to get there and hours to get back.

Many cannot afford to live downtown, and I can only presume that when you decided to live there, you must have known about these events and the parking situation.
Your complaint should be to the city council, not to the residents who are resisting being socially engineered.

It is not that simple to just take mass transit, for some that would entail hours of tedious connections to get there and hours to get back.

That sucks, but less transit doesn't fix it, better transit does.

I thought streetcars, bioswales, bike boxes, light rail, soccer stadiums, and anything that you can use the word 'sustainable', 'green', 'eco-', 'vibrant', or 'world-class' in were the solution to everything.

Aaron - less transit doesn't fix it, better transit does - I think many of us on the blog would actually agree wholeheartedly with you - it's in the definition of transit. For the 1-2 billion for MLR, a lot more buses could be purchased and operated for far less money, and yes, transit would be better. Fixed rail, however, is a very limited transit (and will be gone the day we have a 5.5 or larger earthquake.)

Rakista, I urge you to take your free 3 minutes at City Council and tell all five commissioners your thoughts as you mention to them that they ALL have SUVs and trucks.

Oh, they are all democrats, so that's okay. NOT. Hang up the political labels. Most of the discussions here are slipping away from pol-labels.