Portland Smart Park really starting to smart
Check out the new rate structure coming the week after next at the downtown Portland Smart Park garages. You can currently park for four hours for $6. But under the new menu, that will cost you $7. Math majors out there will note that that's a 16.7% increase.
And with Fareless Square gone and Tri-Met going to a $2.50 fare, you'll spend likely spend $5 getting downtown and back that way starting September 1. Depending on how far you go, the current fare could be as little as $4.20 -- and so that is a 19% increase.
You're not getting any new services out of this, of course -- you'll actually get less -- but hey, it's all going to pay some retired bureaucrat's pension, and so apparently it's worth it. You don't really want to shop or eat somewhere with a free parking lot, do you?
| Posted at 5:18 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (12)
The Portland electorate seems happy to keep pushing a gravy train from behind.
Posted by Mr. Grumpy | June 20, 2012 5:32 PM
Can't you just be happy that the two dumbest leaders in government are "retiring"?
Posted by mcinor | June 20, 2012 5:44 PM
Yes. But it won't end there. Idiots in government kill one goose and immediately go out looking for another when the first corpse isn't even cold. My guess is that smart meters will be showing up all over town -wherever condo bunkers and vibrant neighborhood shops are. When people start avoiding one place, the city will come after them wherever they go to make their lives difficult there too.
Posted by Nolo | June 20, 2012 6:18 PM
Just returned from visiting a city with no charge for downtown parking. The restaurants and stores were packed. Lots of folks on bikes too, but somehow they never seemed to be in my way. There were some folks who looked a little down on their luck , but they never asked for money. It was like Portland in an opposite kind of way.
Posted by Gibby | June 20, 2012 6:27 PM
mcinor - says
"an't you just be happy that the two dumbest leaders in government are "retiring"?"
On the one hand, terrific, THEN you look at what is running to replace them and you say, "Change? What change?" We had two morons in office and we have idiots running to replace them, hard to believe; but as they say, you can't make stuff like this up. From bad to bad doesn't make life better, we're just staggering down the same nasty street with new blind idiots leading (if you want to call it leading).
Posted by Native Oregonian | June 20, 2012 7:22 PM
And because my local bus no longer runs on weekends at all (thanks for nothing, Tri-Met), I have no incentive whatsoever to go downtown on the weekends.
Posted by madrugada mistral | June 20, 2012 7:55 PM
If you run for office in this town and are not "progressive", the media will attack you and your family.
No change locally until more people hit bottom.
Posted by fancypants | June 20, 2012 10:48 PM
Even if one is "progressive" but not in the insiders "club",
the media will ignore that person.
How do we all like the way the election was run here,
with presenting the Mayoral three "pre-selected" ones for the public?
Posted by clinamen | June 20, 2012 11:35 PM
And, don't forget kids ... In the crazy cuckoo land of Portlandia, the city's parking garage money goes to pay for the streetcar!
Posted by Garage Wine | June 21, 2012 6:52 AM
I stay in SW Portland/Tigard/Beaverton for good reason.
Posted by Max | June 21, 2012 10:49 AM
The increase is to $1.60 the first two hours, $1.80 the next hour, and $2.00 the fourth hour. Plus, they're doing away with the attendants, installing pay stations on the main floor. Didn't look to see what company made the pay stations.
Posted by umpire | June 21, 2012 5:34 PM
It never ceases to amaze me how Portland voters continue to scrape the bottom of the barrel for their elected officials. And that there seems to be no bottom to the barrel just a continued dredging up of rot and fester.
Posted by Rusty | June 21, 2012 5:58 PM