Downtown parking a challenge
To the Journal editor:
I was wrong so many years ago when I told a colleague weeks after the parking lot on the southwest corner of West Washington and Front streets was completed (across from the post office), that with the next city commission, that fiasco will be replaced with something that makes sense.
Alas, it did not come to pass and the Downtown Development Authority inherited the mess. You have it right in many ways in your editorial of Jan. 15. As one who travels downtown nearly daily, I’ve watched drivers struggle to park in allotted spaces and align with a meter.
I’ve seen more struggles in drivers trying to exit a space without hitting another vehicle. I’m told it is to my own peril to assist, but on a few occasions I’ve moved away, even blocking the driveway so I may assist another trying to exit a space so others may maneuver in the lot.
I can’t help but wonder given the existing poor configuration of that lot, if money spent on all those parking meters could have been saved by using a ticket arrangement not unlike what exists at the airport?
I wonder, further, if I will live long enough to see parking arrangements improve in Marquette’s downtown.
Thank you.
Robert Manning
Marquette