| The Palo Alto History Project |
| The High Street Parking Garage High Street and Alma Street |
| 2006 |
| The High Street Parking Garage: Fueling the Auto City The downfall of the American City in the second half of the 20th Century is really the story of the automobile. As cities reprioritized around cars, they tore down what made them great --- walkable communities of storefronts, apartments and businesses --- and constructed parking lots and freeways to get people in and out of downtown quickly. Most American cities lost their downtown shopping cores, building large steel and concrete slabs and skyscrapers to house downtown workers. But downtown no longer became a destination, instead just a place to work. Suburban malls took over and many cities became ghost towns at night. Time and again, shops, housing, restaurants, and walkable little streets were lost to parking and freeways. The problem is that the more of these auto-driven accessories you build, the more you need. City planners now know that when communities build more freeways to alleviate traffic, it is a temporary solution at best. Soon more cars start making longer trips, workers move further out of town to purchase cheaper houses, and the traffic snarls all over again. Thankfully, Palo Alto has not lost the beauty and vibrancy of its downtown. It has, however, struggled with parking for at least half a century. Like many other cities, it has been victims of the “if you build it, they will come” phenomenon. City Manager George Morgan recalled in the early 1970’s that his first assignment, when he joined the city in 1952 as assistant to the city manager, was to "solve the downtown parking problem." Twenty years later he said, “That problem will never be solved.” That’s because as Palo Alto builds more parking structures, it simply increases the number of single-occupancy vehicles headed downtown. There are other possible solutions to building parking lots as far as the eye can see. Many think it is cheaper to pay people not to drive. For instance, businesses can offer employees transit passes or cash to bike or car pool. Often it's cheaper to pay an employee $60 a month to leave his car at home than $200 per month to build and operate a parking space. There is also the obvious environmental impact of luring more and more cars downtown. Many environmentalists have suggested providing more city buses and Caltrain routes. Others suggest parking meters to discourage so much car travel. Despite all these concerns, in April 1997, Palo Alto decided to build two enormous sized parking structures. It cost $32 million, bringing the cost-per-space to a stunning $35,476---and the city already owned the land. Palo Alto gained 905 new parking spaces, but also had to relocate the city’s teen center to do it. Why did they do this? Because there is so much support for parking structures. Besides construction companies that get the lucrative contracts, parking is favored by powerful downtown business interests who believe it will help draw customers. Furthermore, parking gets support from surrounding neighbors fed up with “spillover” --- those who park on residential streets and then go to work or shop downtown. The Lot R Parking Structure now stands five stories high behind the Blockbuster Video on Alma Street. According to both workers and shoppers, parking still remains a problem downtown, but ironically, the R Lot and another new lot nearly remain underutilized. Some drivers say they are too far from the places they want to shop. Others are in the dark about where the new parking structures are. $32 million. That’s lot of money for a half-empty parking structure. -Matt Bowling |
| The distinctive staircase of the High Street Parking Garage |
| Looking up the staircase |
| Looking over construction next door |
| Looking down the staircase |
| Reaching the top |
| The map below shows the University Avenue West area |
| The entrance to the garage |
| Parking is at a premium downtown |
| Jerry Keithley meeting with George Morgan (on his left) and Cecil Riley (on his right) at City Hall. They were trying to solve parking problems back in the 1950s and '60s. (PAHA) |
| Sources: Palo Alto Weekly, Palot |