Nathaniel Solley/Staff

In an effort to improve access to key business districts, the city of Berkeley will implement changes to its parking policies Tuesday.

The changes include varying meter rates based on the demand for parking in particular areas and raising time limits for street spots. The city seeks to address frustration over congestion and businesses’ concerns that customers don’t have enough time to shop.

Parking meters Downtown, in the Telegraph area and in the Elmwood district will use a demand-based pricing model, said Matthai Chakko, a spokesperson for the city.

“By increasing the price in the high-demand areas and then lowering (it) in places where parking is more ample, you hope to encourage people to be parking in different places and to not have as much congestion in one spot,” Chakko said.

Parking in popular areas near shopping destinations on Southside and Downtown will cost $2.25 per hour, while parking in less frequently used areas will cost $1.25 per hour, said Matt Nichols, principal transportation planner for the city.

Current parking rates across the city are $1.75 per hour Downtown and $1.50 per hour elsewhere, according to Nichols.

Elizabeth Deakin, a UC Berkeley professor of city and regional planning and urban design who appeared before the City Council as long ago as 2006 to discuss demand-based pricing, emphasized the importance of promulgating information about the new prices and time limits. It could take several months for shoppers and visitors to adjust to the new system, she said.

“If it works well, it will be a little easier to find a parking space if you really want one and you’re willing to pay a little more,” Deakin said.

In the Elmwood district, near College and Ashby, one-hour street-parking limits will increase to three hours, with an increasing hourly rate.

That came as a relief to Melissa Hatheway, the director of marketing and communications for Rialto Cinemas, which operates a theater in Elmwood. Patrons often struggled to find sufficient parking for two- or two-and-a-half-hour films, she said.

“We’re delighted,” Hatheway said. “We’re hoping this parking solution takes off a layer of anxiety and stress from everybody so they (can) come and spend money.”

UC Berkeley senior Max Jason said he would pay more for parking if it resulted in longer time limits and better availability.

“When I’m going and driving around the city, it’s been pretty difficult (to find parking),” he said.

The new rates are the latest in a series of projects in a three-year transportation pilot program funded by federal and regional grants called goBerkeley, Chakko said.

Nichols said it is unclear how the program will affect city parking revenue, but officials will present a detailed revenue report to the City Council in March.

Contact Connor Grubaugh at cgrubaugh@dailycal.org.

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Debated at Sept. 10’s City Council meeting, the roughly $50 million proposal to construct an environmentally sustainable building that can provide permanent residence, social services and a much needed emergency shelter is potentially a new direction for the city administration. Councilmember Jesse Arreguin assured the chamber the cost could be covered by the Berkeley Housing Trust Fund, a pool of money devoted to providing resources for Berkeley’s homeless, in addition to other sources. Because the proposal’s price tag is so substantial, squaring away the funding concerns is a clear priority.

Despite Arreguin’s promises to the contrary, the mayor and Downtown business leaders have expressed skepticism about the project’s financing, in addition to concerns about the new facility displacing more than 100 parking spaces.

Given Bates’ and the business community’s vocal support of Measure S, a failed 2012 ballot initiative that would have effectively kicked homeless people off of commercially zoned sidewalks from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., it isn’t a surprise they are apprehensive about the project.

Bates is right to be aggressive about the security of financial support for the project (and for how much the city might be on the line), and business owners in Berkeley have legitimate grievances about wiping out 112 parking spots in the notoriously parking-scarce Downtown Berkeley area.

That said, there are constructive conversations to be had about how to proceed with this project. Finding ways to integrate more parking spaces with the new facility is a must, and so is reconfiguring the streets surrounding it to allow for more parking spots. There may be a net loss of spots once the project is completed, but business owners stand to benefit from the facility in the long run; an environment with the resources necessary to accommodate the homeless population can only help local businesses.

Downtown Berkeley is a uniquely vibrant atmosphere that will attract customers regardless of whether it takes five or 10 minutes to find parking, but business owners will hurt if parking accommodations aren’t made.

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“BART’s going on strike.” I got the news first from Twitter.

“Well, we’re screwed,” my roommate said.

His boyfriend piped up reassuringly. “We can make it work. We need to make a plan.”

My tribe of roommates sat down last week to figure out a strategy. Our apartment is in Fremont. Jeff works in Newark only a few miles away, but getting there by bus involves an ill-timed transfer. Devin goes to San Francisco State University in Daly City. John works in Corte Madera, and his normal commute involves three transit agencies, including BART. I have class in Berkeley four days a week, but I can take AC Transit the whole way if I have three hours to spare. Collectively, the household has one car. Solve for X, where X represents everyone getting to work and school on time and before we can’t stand one another anymore.

Solving this dilemma required a complicated system of picking up and dropping off, minimizing tolls and taking advantage of free BART parking during the strike. My roommate selflessly shared his fuel-efficient Honda, and together we put almost 100 miles a day on the odometer. The days began at 4:45 a.m. and ended at 10 p.m., but the job got done. Overall, the measurable cost of commuting this way came to just about the same as our combined cost of commute if BART were running. However, not everything can be measured in dollars and cents.

There are resources available to everyone that are simple to cultivate and can be incredibly valuable. These nonmonetary economic resources are the very thing that saved my friends, my roommates and me during the recent strike. The greatest of these resources is goodwill. My roommate didn’t hesitate to offer us the use of his car. One of my good friends is teaching in the Summer Bridge program and was immediately offered a closer place to stay in Berkeley. Another friend from Cal joined forces with a classmate so that they could carpool from Pleasanton together. The people who extend these offers are kind and generous, but the remainder of these transactions is made up by banked goodwill. The recipients of the kindness and help of friends put in months and sometimes years of the reciprocating behavior of friendship to indicate that we are worthy of this kind of nonmonetary investment.

A person without good friends — without this long term banking of goodwill — might have had to arrange for a rental car or a local hotel room in order to keep a job or make it to class during the last week. Comparing scenarios between people with banked goodwill and people without it doesn’t seem like an argument about economy, but the bottom line can be expressed in debit and credit.

This principle is nearly identical to the idea of networking. Networking is this nebulous idea of making lasting and worthwhile connections, and we’re all supposed to be doing it in college and online and at parties and any time the panic about post-graduation employment sets in. Networking is supposed to bank professional goodwill and remind potential contacts that we are fun at parties and that we know the same people; it’s supposed to keep our names and faces fresh in the minds of those who matter. The ones who matter aren’t always in charge, however. Often, even an entry-level good word is an advantage to an applicant.

Here’s the point: Whether networking for a job or banking goodwill for reciprocity in friendships, your contribution is the same. If you are friendly, if you are kind, if you are forthcoming and generous with your time and your thoughts, the payoff has value, even when forming priceless relationships. Goodwill has a distinct economic worth. It’s an odd way to think of it, but it means having a car to borrow or a couch to crash on in another city during a transit strike. Relationships make up our lives, but they also have measurable utility. The more you put into them, the more you can someday derive from them.

The BART strike lasted less than a week. My friend staying in Berkeley left his borrowed lodging clean and with a vase of flowers on the table in thanks. My friends from Pleasanton worked out the worth of their carpool without gas money, because one is far better off than the other. Instead, the driver asked her passenger to read her the news, tell her jokes and keep the ride interesting. I brought back my roommate’s car with a bunch of new miles on it, but I also ran all his errands for him while I had it and surprised him with takeout.

Being rich or being broke is not merely a condition dictated by the contents of one’s bank account. It is, literally and metaphorically, expressed in the relationships we have with one another and what comes of them. Measure in utils, measure in love.

Meg Elison writes the Monday column on financial issues affecting UC Berkeley students.

Meg Elison writes the Monday column on financial issues affecting UC Berkeley students.Contact Meg Elison at melison@dailycal.org.

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We are encouraged by this proposal and urge the City Council to approve it. We acknowledge the city’s need for revenue from parking citations. This measure would allow Berkeley to continue that, just without being unnecessarily aggressive. People should not be punished for making a good faith attempt to return to their vehicles, only to arrive as many as five minutes late.

A 2007 analysis conducted by The New York Times found that of about 276,000 New York City drivers who were ticketed in the first five minutes after their parking expired, 28,000 were issued citations immediately. While the specifics of this analysis are not perfectly equated to Capitelli’s recommendation — and Berkeley is not New York — it suggests that enforcement officers pay more attention to the letter of the law than its spirit. The current proposal could potentially cut down on some of the animosity that exists between drivers and parking officers.

A previous measure regarding parking violations was taken off the Feb. 14 council agenda and postponed. That proposal, presented by Councilmembers Max Anderson and Kriss Worthington, would have given leniency to people who arrived at their vehicles while the ticket was being written. We commend Councilmember Capitelli for bringing up this issue again in a more clear-cut manner than before. The five-minute rule still strives for accountability for drivers but, unlike Anderson and Worthington’s idea, gives a definite rule to parking enforcers.

Besides the obvious benefits for drivers, the proposal could also be advantageous for local businesses, encouraging customers to park and shop in Berkeley, knowing that they have a few minutes of leeway.

Nonetheless, though we believe this proposal is a good move, it should not be the last move. The parking situation in Berkeley is still grim. The city should continue to look at ways to cut down on parking tickets. This is a good first step. We hope it’s not the last.

The post Five minutes of bliss appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Councilmember Kriss Worthington said he suggested this proposal — which the Berkeley City Council will consider at its meeting Tuesday — to ask the city manager to create an alternate policy after he received complaints from city residents about an increasing number of parking tickets being given out.

Many other council members agreed that there should be some kind of grace period for people whose parking spaces have expired. However, while the city’s new multi-space parking meters record the time the car was parked on a special ticket, the individual old meters do not, and instead just show that the meter is expired.

“If I’m the parking enforcement officer (and) the meter says expired, I don’t know if it expired two hours or two minutes ago,” said Councilmember Laurie Capitelli.

However, council members were supportive of a grace period, and will consider methods to keep track of how long the person has parked at single-spaced parking meters at the Tuesday meeting.

“If somebody is coming to their car, cut them a break,” said Alameda County resident Cheryl Young. “Nobody likes getting a $40 ticket when it’s a minute over.”

According to Worthington, the purpose of parking meters is not to make money but to encourage turnover parking so customers can find a place to park.

But ticket fines have been raised by $5 twice over the last two years, according to Councilmember Gordon Wozniak. Because the state receives a share of the money from the parking tickets, cities have had to increase the cost of parking tickets and rates of parking meters to fund other programs, according to Capitelli.

“The fact that the tickets have gone up makes it more stressful for people who do get tickets,” Worthington said. “We need to strike a balance.”

If the referral is passed, the city manager will research and create an analysis of Berkeley’s current position and the financial implications of establishing this policy.

Worthington said that, as far as he knows, no other cities have a  similar policy, although Oakland has a five-minute grace period.

“I think it’ll improve visitors’ morale and more people would want to shop,” Wozniak said. “People don’t mind paying for the parking meter, but they hate getting a ticket.”

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