Dowtown Dallas Parking, a Pictorial Tour

To highlight my points from the second to last post, I took several pictures around downtown.

First, this is Ceasar Chavez Parkway. It is eight lanes in both directions. Yet, not one of those lanes are dedicated to on-street parking.

The second is a stretch of Jackson between Harwood and Pearl. There are 11 curb cuts, greatly diminishing the on-street parking quantity.

The next is one of the 11 curb cuts, though it is no longer in use. Though there are meters in this picture, it is far more common for an unused curb cut to be meter-less.

This is a garage curb cut just outside my residential building. The curb cut takes the space of 4.5 on-street spaces. Also in the picture is a truck. It is notable because the picture was taken before 9 am. It is illegally parked.

Here is a stretch of Elm. It is just a block away from the heart of downtown and between almost 3 million square feet of office space. Yet, the view from the street is one of desolation. Note the lack of any parking meters.

The following series is the retail section of my argument. The first is Chase, CVS and Jason's Deli on Main Street. A prime place for metered, convenient parking, yet you'll see the no parking signs all up and down this section.

Next up is a 7-11 on Commerce. However, it is more important for people to turn left than park and spend money.

If you forgot your anniversary and you want to stop by the Flagship Neiman Marcus to get your significant other a gift, well you'll have to drive into the garage, pay, take the elevator down, cross the street and go in, because you can't drive up to the meter, drop in some change and go in.

Are you on your way home, but want to stop by and get a bite to eat? Unless you do it outside of rush hour, you are out of luck. Go to your home outside the downtown area and spend money on Italian.

What about the downtown grocery store? Nope, even on little-used Jackson Street, you can not stop on the street and get what you need. The ironic thing is that the city at the behest of downtown stakeholders subsidized the grocer at the tune of $1 million over two years.

Continuing the theme of don't stop by during rush hour, the donut shop on Elm Street might be particularly keen on attracting the morning customer. Sadly, the parking meters out front are not. The clothing shops hours might be dictated by the availability of convenient parking, meaning shorter than they might otherwise be.

And finally, downtown is chock full of "no parking from here to corner" signs. I guess the idea is that having the corner available makes it easier on traffic. I can certainly understand outbound, ie easier turning right, but in bound makes no sense, like the one in the picture. Either way though, I feel it is at least one wasted space on each corner.

Also, compare the last picture with the fifth picture. Even though they have the same amount of pedestrians (0), this one looks like there's more activity, thanks to the parked cars.

Finally, a look back at the Stockyards, which does allow cars until the corner.