How's this for preserving the Feel and Fabric of Our Streets in this pedestrian scaled city? This is the view of a Meeting Street sidewalk near the SCE&G offices and the entry to their parking lot taken in 2006.
Most cities rely on regular and frequent public transportation to move people through their central business districts, even on weekends and holidays. Charleston has resorted to "hotbeding" its parking lots as its business lots are hawked at night and on weekends. At the same time the public owned parking garages in the area are nearly empty.
Too bad the business license fees generated from these lots aren't being used to fund improvements to our transportation system. We could possibly restore the Meeting Street trolly lines that for generations ran from its terminus at the Battery northward to well beyond the city limits. The trolley system was abandoned in the 1930's when SCE&G as the operator of the electric trolly system since the 1880's was persuaded by General Motors to switch to buses.
Never mind. We don't collect business license fees from many of these fly by night parking lot operations. Rather than add anything more to this entry, I'll let a recent photograph say it instead.
1 comment:
As long as the city continues to use suburban parking requirements, it will be more profitable to use these "vacant" lots for parking instead of uses that are more directly related to people (homes, businesses and civic institutions). As long as few alternative transportation systems are seen as available, private cars and the need for parking become the only alternative. Both are public policies that facilitate continued low use of existing public transportation and the higher cost of land because so much land by law (and market demand) is dedicated exclusively to car storage.
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