Letter | A perspective on Town Center parking and its challenges

Re: Replying to Mercer Island Reporter Nov. 28 editorial and article on parking in our North end business district.

To one degree or another, I have been doing business here on Mercer Island since 1960 albeit not in our business district since 1995 and hardly any now. Through all that time I have witnessed vacillations as to whether we had too much parking or not enough. Looks like not enough is coming on us faster then enough and seems like too much is to go down as a note in history. Yes, I do remember when it was judged that we had so much parking space nobody wanted to go to more than one store at a time without driving.

Of course, in those days, no building more than two stories could be built!

Anyway, just within the last couple of years when I have had to drive to our northeast business district more than once a week, as I must do now, finding parking has become to be more of a challenge. Then, too, I seem to remember that awhile back it was noted that too many retail/business properties were vacant vs. all of the expansion going on to produce more apartments/condos. So it seems to me that our city leadership needs to address this parking dilemma more seriously if it is expected for businesses to serve those of us who do not live or will not be living in the close-by apartments/condos currently undergoing capacity expansion. Bellevue and Issaquah, where there still is plenty of parking, are not that far away.

Harry A. Dingwall, D.V.M.

 

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