More on the lack of parking in the Grove

The new Oak Street office building; formerly the Oak Street Garage.

We were talking about the lack of parking in Coconut Grove and there are people who have other points of view, who apparently don't feel that parking is an issue.

One person in the comments, claims that, "There appears to be some confusion in the blog piece and comments above. The Oak Street Garage will remain a garage, but will have office space built on top. The future is going to be less car-centric and more focused on ride shares, scooter shares, biking, public transit, and walking. A little less parking will help expedite that shift. Perhaps the loss of parking is a good thing."

That's all well and good and true - there will be parking in the new office building, but correct me if I'm wrong; won't the office workers be using those parking spaces?

When the parking garage was first sold, it was then taken over by the construction workers who were working on nearby Terra projects. They had been getting complaints about taking up all the street parking, so parking in the garage, purchased by their boss, seemed to be the solution.

But, by 9 or 10 am each day, the garage was full and closed to other cars who wanted to park there. It opened up again after the construction workers left, and this could be a solution for parking at the office building on nights and weekends, but perhaps not, otherwise the Miami Parking Authority wouldn't be in such a panic over finding a new location for a new parking garage today.

As for the idea of being less "car-centric," that sounds great, but in Miami, we are a car city and getting people out of their cars may not be that easy. New York City has major problems with cars and traffic and arguably, they have one of the best mass transit systems in the country, they are a walkable city and still cars dominate the landscape there. Traffic is backed up all times of day and night and there is always talk of charging fees to drive cars into the city. You can take a subway to all of the boroughs (except Staten Island), and take one quick subway ride to New Jersey as well as quick commuter trains upstate, into Connecticut and New England, and yet, there is major traffic and parking issue in the city.

I don't see us here in the Grove or Miami becoming car-centric any time soon. There are some in the Grove who have been pushing us that way but all it has done is hurt business and make things frustrating for locals and visitors. Street parking spaces have been made into extended sidewalks or just eliminated for no apparent reason and garages don't exist. Many spaces were turned into loading zones which sit empty all day and the valet service has taken over all the rest. It'seems that valet services pop up on a whim. There's one guy in charge of the transportation committee whose desire seems to be to get rid of every street parking spot in the Grove. I don't know why. Does he own Uber or Freebee or something?