The Gazette’s Oct. 17 story about the crumbling E.J. Gare parking garage and Councilor Aline Davis’s spot-on comment about the inevitable connection to Picture Main Street rumblings led me straight down some rabbit holes of my own.
Full disclosure: I’m neither Northampton native nor a resident, merely a 13-year newbie and frequent visitor from across the river. However, my burrowings lead me to ask some hopefully pertinent questions.
I’ve just returned from a visit to Colorado, my birthplace, where light rail (every 15 minutes, $10 ticket) takes me from the Denver airport to Union Station (23 miles, one half-hour). Then a “trolley” system of free buses takes me up and down the main drag with stops every couple of blocks. No need for a (rental) car, and if there’s a parking garage nearby, it’s not a central, memorable structure. My “Bustang” shuttle bus takes me (140 mi/2.5 hr/$32) from Union Station all the way to Salida, where my brother and I were born, and the Flatiron Flyer bus ($2.75, 28 miles/min) takes me from Denver to Boulder, my hometown.
Boulder is where Pearl Street, one of the town’s main arteries, was blocked off and turned into an “outdoor shopping mall” after Kalamazoo, Michigan, first invented the idea in 1959. (https://boulderdowntown.com/visit/history-of-pearl-street). My son Munro, who eventually became a New York City urban planner, enjoyed the jugglers, musicians, magicians and play structures after it opened in 1976.
Isn’t it worth considering some out-of-the-box (and out-of-the-car), old and new, tried and true, economical and sustainable solutions to the downtown parking conundrum? Look at plans that are already working for others? Isn’t it time to get out from under the car-gas-oil thrall? Consider the crumbling of the city’s garage to be an omen, an opportunity?
Jane McPhetres Johnson
North Amherst