This is a sad and sorry state of affairs.

Here's my post from the other thread. It is relevant here too.

Making parking more difficult and more expensive is not going to help people park, just make it more difficult to get downtown unless people have no alternative.

We have one parking lot on the periphery, at 280, for carpoolers, but none at 101 and no shuttles serve that parking lot. Why not?

Parking permits are linked to a car, what happens to someone who needs to use spouse's car, a loaner while car is in shop, or if the car pool driver goes on vacation?

Why can't occasional permits be bought for those who only need them a couple of times a week? Some might use Caltrain or carpool, if they could buy a permit for several days.

Why don't we have more technological solutions have been talked about but nothing has been done. Instead it is easier to put prices up without any ease of service.

If the parking lots are full at the old subsidized prices, why not raise the prices to market levels and use the extra money to provide alternatives ways to get to California Ave? Like shuttle busses or a bike bridge over the train tracks from Midtown to California Ave?

Would it be possible for some of the highest paid City employees (department managers for instance) to dial down their generous salaries a bit in order to allow business owners and their hourly paid workers a realistic opportunity to park in the area? Making money or trying to make up a monetary deficit off of the backs of minimum paid workers seems rather draconian.

As senior residents of a CCRC, we are dependent on services of low-paid workers for daily activities and care. Most of these workers have to commute long distances to work in Palo Alto. Many have to move from one job to another during the day to make ends meet. The senior population of Palo Alto is increasing and will continue to do so. Increasing parking fees and increasing resident parking zones is only ok if it is compensated by equivalent other forms of transportation solutions for commutes from the East Bay and South Bay from which most of our workers come. These forms of transportation do not exist for the most part. The comments from "Resident" are right on. We need to stop thinking only of fees and permits and combine these with equivalent alternatives such as shuttles, additional parking lots, etc.

What is being forgotten is that people who drive from the East Bay or the Coast have no alternatives to driving. These people work in our retail and serve and cook in our restaurants.

What will happen is that we will have no service workers able to afford to work in Palo Alto.

This is a joke.

"What is being forgotten is that people who drive from the East Bay or the Coast have no alternatives to driving. These people work in our retail and serve and cook in our restaurants."

Exactly. This is very prevalent in Los Altos. Many have lost their jobs and cannot commute long distances to work for these hourly wages. Executives on the other hand have 2-10 million dollar salaries and often go on vacation. It just doesn't make sense.

@Resident's first post and most recent posts are so true. They ask the questions that our over-paid bureaucrats should have considered when crafting the parking program. PA's wasted a fortune "revitalizing" our downtown areas only to destroy them. This lack of creativity and/or plain common sense shows how out-of-touch they are with our small local businesses, medical offices and residents.

Unfortunately, it's a bad joke that we'll soon have to no restaurant and service workers who can afford to work in, park in, commute to Palo Alto.
Many restaurants are closing because they can't keep workers and the restaurant industry is being split into very high end and low-end as the middle vanishes.

The city's been penalizing Cal Ave employees for years. My wonderful eyeglass person got tired of being tickets even when her parking permit was displayed and left, as have other nurses, dental techs and personal service people I used for years. I'm furious that PA ignored the needs of the medical professionals and their patients and that I have to waste my time fimding new replacements.

Don't they ever go to the dentist?? Are our bureaucrats so tone-deaf and clueless about real community needs? They ignore substantive complaints and recommendations. That they miss so many "outreach" notifications can't be coincidental.

City Council and staff again demonstrate their ideological bias against cars - at least, visitors' cars. Personally - and I live in the Downtown RPP area -I'm OK with these fees as long as everyone - residents and all City employees - must pay the same rates. It makes some sense to use pricing to manage congestion and the finite parking resource. But residents contribute to congestion and should have an incentive to get their cars off the street. And these dollar amounts go way beyond management.

On the plus side, the four parking permits which downtown residents can buy for $150 are now worth $2,952 - a month's rent! A sensible government assistance scheme for that very needy population.

I work as a realtor, and can not park outside the city, or have my car a 20 minute bus ride away. I remember reading that the city employees all have free parking. To me this looks like the usual predatory government, the same that is constantly trying to tax businesses, block roads by "traffic calming" and on. Time to fire 80% of these high pay busybodies and have them find real work, work that benefits citizens.

[Post removed due to same poster using multiple names]

[Post removed due to factually incorrect information.]

If I was factually incorrect, humble apologies.

Please provide the correct information for the cost of the 11 roundabouts and/or tell the other local newspaper that its front page story today was incorrect.

Now that there is news of a new grocer at Edgewood, it will be interesting to see where the East Bay commuters carpool park? They can't afford the astronomical parking prices in downtown so will have to park on the residential streets and carpool.

I suspect Edgewood will be the next area for parking permits.

After that, no retail or restaurants in town.

Unless of course carpool parking lots are built near 101 and 280.