Crazy in Suburbia: What's with the two-hour limit in the downtown library parking garage?

This question has bugged me ever since the library opened in July. Not only do you have to pay to use the very convenient underground garage, you are limited to two hours. 

As I’ve said before, I like the new library, and I occasionally use it as one of my offices away from home. A lot of people like the new library. City officials say it is one of the most heavily visited libraries in the Contra Costa County library system.

But working at the library has this parking drawback. If you want to work there for an extended period of time--and park in one of the some 70 stalls in the otherwise spacious underground garage--you have to interrupt the flow of your work before the two-hour limit runs out. You need to trust that you can leave your stuff—or pack it all up—and head down to the garage and feed more money into one of the two pay stations. If your car sits there past the two-hour limit, you face a $40 ticket.

(The library also has more than 30 stalls above ground for people making visits of 30 minutes or less).

I was talking to a self-employed friend who had also envisioned using the new $39.9 million state-of the-art library as her away-from-home office. For her, the two-hour time limit has been a deterrent. 

Sure, as some Walnut Creek Patch readers have suggested, I can park in the city-owned Broadway garage, which is only two blocks away and has no time limits. Maybe that's what other library users do, or they park at Civic Park. 

But my friend and I think there's no reason we shouldn't be able to park at the library. I mean, why else does the library have this garage if it's not for patrons? And, we were wondering: How can this two-hour limit encourage people to use the library in the way we and others might want to use it—indeed, in the way library supporters say they envision the public using it.

A library is not a retail store you run into, browse around a bit, get what you need and leave. A library should ideally invite people of all ages to come in and hang out for a while. At the library, job seekers can spend a few hours in the second-floor business center looking for work. Community groups can book one of the  private meeting rooms and talk important business. 

Students can study calculus with classmates, research papers or sit in big comfy chairs in the teen area and send goofy YouTube videos to one another. Moms can curl up with their toddlers on the floor in the children's area and read story after story to them.

The dreamers among us can sit all afternoon in some quiet, well-lit corner and make a dent in War and Peace, write some lousy poetry or get started on the novel we'll never publish. 

Heather Ballenger, the city’s public services director, acknowledges that the two-hour limit raises "a good question." 

She said the library garage operates under a similar management system as street parking in the core downtown area. It doesn't operate like the three city garages, which don't have time limits.

Of course, if you remember, the stalls in the parking lot in the old library also had the two-hour meters. Time limits for parking at the old library didn't seem to be as much of an issue because people probably weren't as interested in hanging out in the crowded, out-of-date library for extended periods.

Parking and traffic experts say the main purpose of using metered parking with time limits is to encourage customer turnover. Metered parking is a popular strategy in congested downtown areas. 

The thing is, congestion is not an issue in the new library's underground garage—certainly not on the weekdays I've visited. In fact, it's not very crowded at all as you can see in the video I shot in the middle of the day last week.  The only time I've seen the garage crowded is in the evenings, when parking is free. And, the people parking there at night don't appear to be using the library. Rather, they are using those spaces so they can go to nearby restaurants and bars. 

My friend  asked: Why not have four- or six-hour time limits in the library garage? Ballenger said the two-hour limit was set to be consistent with street parking limits elsewhere in the downtown core area.  

Both Ballenger and City Council member Kish Rajan, who serves on the city's Downtown Parking Task Force, agree that the two-hour limits in the library garage could be among the many issues that will be up for discussion after the task force unveils its recommendations for better managing downtown Walnut Creek's "parking inventory." The  task force, made up of city officials, business representatives and private citizens, has been meeting for more than a year and is set to unveil these recommendations at a special City Council study session next Thursday. 

In the meantime, I'll continue to use the library and park in its garage. Guess what? A few times, I didn't even swipe my credit card at the pay station when I parked there after seeing hardly any cars. I took a chance and paid nothing. I thought the parking enforcement people can't be wasting their time patrolling down here. The first few times, I parked for hours for free in the middle of the day with impunity. I worked uninterrupted. I got lots done. I was happy. 

But last week, traffic enforcement got me. I can't remember if I paid this time for two hours. But I came back after working for more than two hours and there was a $40 ticket waiting for me.