Downtown PARKING – a little “self-governance”, temporarily?
With recent focus on our tight daytime parking conditions in downtown Berlin MD, I vote for a little of that “self-governance”, it may be just the stuff to carry us through the Holiday-Event shopping season thundering our way. Our annual VICTORIAN CHRISTMAS celebration begins next week with Arts Night on the 28th!
Certainly a benefit of living or working around Berlin is that most already know of some out of the way, yet convenient spaces. We can park and yet not tie up parking for visitors and potential customers for our town businesses…and in this “less than stellar” economy that is very important. Everyone benefits from a continuing and vibrant town center.
However, never a big fan of adding rules to rules, perhaps it’s time to take another look at current realities. We have 
several marked, Town-owned or maintained Public Parking lots just steps off Main Street. Wisely, shop owners and downtown business employees who park all day are already strongly motivated to park off Main Street. Employees of the Town government have been instructed to park in the St. Paul’s Church lot. I’m betting that if these reasonable requests were met on a regular basis there would be little need for more rules. Otherwise we are looking at more regulations – more signs and ultimately more costs in providing Police enforcement. Do you really want this?
That having been said, our downtown district needs more permanent parking. Good minds are working on this – trying to configure around our narrow streets, sidewalk shops, restaurants and second floor apartments toward a more beneficial plan for all. However, as one friend so aptly put it – “we’re not starting with a cornfield”. This will take time and it will take now scarce investment dollars. So, in the meantime we might try a little self-governance to keep things moving – toward the future of our businesses and our town.
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