Piedmont Parking Deck

Atlanta's city council voted this week to replace 1 acre of park with a 783-space pay parking deck. An existing 100-ish space parking lot will be removed - adding 3 acres of greenspace but removing 100 free parking spaces. The additional roads that must be added to get to the new deck; this hard surface area was not entered in the "additional greenspace" equation.

It (was) an ongoing debate where the proponents claim the deck will solve street parking crowding and call the opponents "elitist"

Here's my ajc.com blog contribution:

STREET PARKING - 783 new deck pay spaces and 100 or so fewer free spaces (the current, existing surface lot that is to be replaced by greenspace) WILL NOT mean fewer cars on the streets around the park.

RENTAL FACILITIES - The deck is for events at Day Hall and Magnolia Hall. Period. And on days when those facilities are booked and the deck is unavailable to the general public? Where do those cars go?

ELITISM - But hey! None of that bothers me! I’m all about elitism! Having a pay parking deck is about elite as it gets. I live next to the park and already pay for parking (with property taxes); now, O.T.P folks will have to a user’s tax, too. About time! Enforce permit parking in the streets surrounding the park and keep out all the riff-raff that think they should be able to come to a public park without paying!

Jeff (hoho on the ajc.com)