Cheap parking is what we need; and a trolley

I was talking about the problems with our parking meters and now I also feel that city controlled parking lots in Coconut Grove are a big issue. Why? Because I spent last weekend in Coral Gables and they have incredible parking rates. I am not talking about private lots, because that's a separate business. But the City owned lots in the Gables are amazing.

I parked at the Coral Gables garage and when I left, after four hours, the charge was $1.00. That is ONE DOLLAR. For four hours worth of parking -- 25 cents an hour. We were quite surprised.

During the Gables' Saturday Farmer's Market, parking is free in various garages in Coral Gables.

As for the Miami Parking Authority, I know they are a necessity and every City has a parking authority, I watch Parking Wars, I get it. But the meters should run. Just yesterday I tried to use a meter again, this time it would not accept bills as you can see by the photo above.

Now for the trolley that we don't have, but the rest of our district has. I had a hunch that the reason we don't have the City of Miami District 2 trolley was that it was tied into the parking meters, in other words, if people take the free trolley, they won't pay to park, but I guess that really isn't so, as we are all so tied to our cars that even with the trolley, all the meters would be taken anyway by those who chose to drive.

But of course with the trolley service coming into the Center Grove, I feel that more people would visit the Grove who don't now. Our neighbors from Brickell or Wynwood or Midtown and Downtown would possibly hop on and come to the Grove via trolley. Think of the Arts Festival, which just passed. How many people avoided the Grove due to the traffic and parking issues? I think that people would have easily jumped on a trolley to come to Coconut Grove for that weekend and maybe any weekend.

People could have shuttled back and forth between the Wynwood Arts Festival and the Coconut Grove Arts Festival, enjoying both and as for traffic, when you're sitting in a trolley with friends, you don't notice the traffic, especially when someone else is driving and especially when it's a trolley, which is fun.

There are many people in the Grove working on getting us that trolley. Hope it's soon.

As for my parking dilemma of not having my parking decal for the lot I park in, well, the guys from Double Park, who run the lot, read the story I posted, and they emailed me a decal for March! Talk about being right on top of it. I will have a story on them soon, they really are worth checking out for monthly rates and long term parking for events and other things.