Thursday December 6, 2007
Miami Beach Parking Receipt Generator. Supposedly they’re on to this, so it’s just for fun. (via) Update: MBPRG got p0wned.
Tuesday April 10, 2007
Miami-Dade commissioners are cooking up a plan for Carnival Center parking. I don’t understand why it’s this difficult to figure out parking for a building that’s essentially surrounded on all four sides by parking lots ready to be built up into garages. Also, examination of the report (.pdf) reveals what a very paper-based and old-school administrative system is our county government.
Tuesday January 30, 2007
Everybody gets a shot
Tremont and Beach Towing (via) share the wealth. One time I parked in the alley behind my building to unload my groceries, and when I got back from dropping the first haul my car was on the truck. Cost me $125 just for him to put it down; he didn’t tow it a foot.
On the other hand, Beach residents feel a little differently about these guys then anyone else, because without them we’d never be able to park.
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Wednesday December 27, 2006
A parking garage right here? Well, duh.
Wednesday November 22, 2006
People who can't park and don't care
SUV drivers + Aventura = can’t park, let alone drive. All these pictures were taken during one visit to (what else?) Whole Foods. Walked straight from the car to the store, too. Talk about places I’m glad I don’t live. And I hear it’s even worse north of the county line.
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Thursday November 16, 2006
Parking meters
There are areas where parking spaces are a genuine scarcity compared to demand — anywhere near the beach, Downtown, the airport. Then there are places where that status is more dubious — Coral Gables, Sunset Place, downtown Hollywood. I think Midtown falls squarely in the latter category.
It isn’t necessarily even the money — it’s the feeling of being ripped off and made to jump through hoops. Parking in a garage is already a hassle, but making me fuck around with a ticket that needs to get validated and keeping an eye on the clock is a great way to make sure I only to to Target when I really really need to. For the life of me, I don’t see how that’s good for business.
In some areas, there might be a genuine concern that someone will park in one garage and then go somewhere else where the parking is more expensive. But in Wynwood? The only thing around there is galleries. If folks going to the galleries get in the habit of parking for free at Midtown, I’d think that would be a welcome development. I just don’t know what they’re thinking with those rates — it’s like they don’t want to make enough money to cover the expense of having the garage attendant and enforcement, but want to charge enough to be a pain in the ass.
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Wednesday November 8, 2006
Boxed in. How many times do I have to point out that we’re all in this together, and if we don’t look out for each other, we’re lost? Equally bad: people who park and leave big spaces behind and in front of their car, where a second car could have fit if they’d just scooted forward. People like this deserve unpleasant notes left under their windshield wipers.
Friday July 7, 2006
Parking at Miami Performing Arts Center has a PL4n!
OK, folks, the plan is here: 1697 parking spaces on four lots and one garage (plus 751 valet spaces), all within “one- to three-block radius” um, no sorry, I’m looking at your little graphic (shown actual size; I guess we don’t need to see whatever that legend is), and the far end of the garage looks a little farther out then three blocks. But let’s be serious: you don’t walk ‘as the crow flies’ when you’re going to the opera: you have to stick to the sidewalks. I had a little extra time, so I imported a Google Maps image into Illustrator, and traced out a walking route from somewhere at the far end of the garage to the entrance of the opera house:
Then I straightened out the route and compared it to the legend. As sketched, it’s 2,496 feet, or just shy of a half mile. No big deal on a nice day, but try it dressed up on a muggy October Miami evening. I actually suggest the valet, which at $20 is only $5 more then the spot in the garage; standing around in the hot air is preferable to schleping a half mile. By the way, Here’s a link to MPAC’s flash-based parking widget. Personally, it doesn’t quite work in IE or Firefox for me, but others may have better luck.
For extra fun, let’s count the ways in which the Herald article blows it:
- Swallows the “three blocks” crap hook, line, and sinker—right out of the gate (metaphor whiplash, sorry).
- “announced this week that they have secured about 2,500 valet and self-park spaces” Opportunity missed to break out a calculator: it’s actually 2,448 spaces
- “a sell-out crowd at the center, which has a capacity of 4,820” Let’s not bother to point out that that means 1.97 seats for every parking space.
- “Center leaders acknowledged the need for nearby parking garages more than 10 years ago while planning the state-of-the-art center, which is $102.1 million over budget at $446.3 million.” Good enough, though the original budget was $255 million, which puts the current total more like $191 million over budget.
- “Though the center will miss the opportunity to profit from parking fees from its own garages, Hardy said the new plan won’t burden the budget, either.” I guess you can’t “LOL”s in a newspaper article, so we’ll let this one go.
- “The Performing Arts Center is likely to be completed in early August.” Wrong.
Update: Another Herald article offers a dry look at MPAC prices.
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Wednesday June 21, 2006
Transit Man has a pretty great rant about parking around MPAC. I think his point is that there’s public transportation around, so less emphasis should be paid to a parking shortage. To which I say: more power to you! On the other hand, opera fans are older, well-dressed people. I find it difficult to picture 2,200 of them riding the rails to get to the theater. But overall the point is well taken. (p.s. The site design still needs some work. Can we have some margins between the text and the edges of the column? And can we not have a “MORE>>” link with each article witch doesn’t take you to anything more?)
