So this is how it works kids. If you want to use your GPS on your phone to find a parking spot, first you have to find a parking spot to use your phone. See it is against the law (texting ban) to use your phone in that capacity while driving, so you must first park to find a parking spot, or as Q-Tip Smith has suggested, have a friend along. Hopefully your friend has parking in front of their house so you can pick them up, or they can pull a Dukes & Hazard and try to jump in the car while driving by (I think that is legal, but I am sure councilor Erpenbach is working on an ordinance to make it illegal. I think I heard her saying in a meeting one day “I’m gonna get those Duke Boys”.)
Sioux Falls has an ordinance against using hand-held devices to send text messages or emails or surf the Internet while a person is driving or in traffic. The ordinance does not prohibit the use of internal or dashboard navigation devices, but the ban would encompass using GPS on a smartphone.
Smith said he encourages drivers to have a passenger access the site or, if there is no passenger, to pull over, access the site, and then put the phone a cup holder while it gives directions out loud. Smith said it’s his practice to pull over first before using his phone.
The city is also going to train meter peeps to be nicer 🙂
Meter enforcement officers will wear bright gold shirts and undergo customer service training so they can help people downtown.
Wonder why they don’t just hire nice peeps to begin with? I am just saying. Maybe riding around on that Hoveround all day makes them angry? Maybe they should install a massager seat on them. You will also have the option to pay your parking ticket online now. Now that’s customer service! They also have a new logo. As Q-Tip Smith says, “Just look for the Gold P!” I guess versus the brown P.
Meter enforcement officers will wear bright gold shirts and undergo customer service training so they can help people downtown.
Smith and Nelson say they will be known as PALs.
So remember, when you come upon someone in a bright gold shirt who is writing you a parking ticket, he is your PAL!!
Darin Smith indicated that public parking is profitable for the City. He wasn’t kidding……
They use Rochester Armored Car Co. and a guy wearing a GUN to empty out the meters!!
Don’t believe me…..
Drive through DT between 6 and 8 on weekday mornings.
(I’d like to know what the City is paying Rochester Armored Car Co. for this service)
I think they have to use an Armored car service do to liability issues. I wouldn’t want a city employee doing that.
I think this is all a great idea insofar as the biggest beef among the lazy denizens of the non-downtown area is that there’s never anywhere to park downtown and heaven forbid anyone drive around the block to park or walk a hundred feet to their destination.
If hanging a bunch of blue and yellow signs and giving these quasi-suburbanites an app to look at on their phone ends up being a help to downtown businesses, I think that’s a laudable goal – to heck with Sue Aguilar and her mommy-state texting ban.
But the price tag on it all certainly raises an eyebrow…
I love the quote, “Look for the Gold P.” When Q-Tip first said this in the press conference, I was like, “What?” You don’t even have to be a sick * like me to go? Huh?
HG – will agree, we already have careless and reckless driving laws in place to prosecute people who are driving like idiots, we didn’t need the texting ban. I think it would have been funny if a councilor would have offered an amendment that said, “Applying makeup, eating fastfood or looking for your Miley Cyrus CD while driving is also illegal.”
Click Rain came up with the marketing campaign. Surprised that Dems like Smith and Huether would allow this guy to do this;
http://www.southdacola.com/blog/2012/09/of-course-prominent-republicans-in-sd-dont-want-you-to-get-involved-and-informed/
But the price tag on it all certainly raises an eyebrow…
This stuff is a drop in the bucket. Wait til they start that 20 million dollar DT parking ramp. According to a parking study I read from a couple years ago, leased parking DT is going to skyrocket in the next couple years.
BOHICA!!!!
I wonder if MMM tearing down the “CASH COW” of a parking ramp over the river so Lloyd and Hegg could put up their hotel has anything to do with the old Western Surety building sitting empty for going on…..
is it two years?
They even tried to auction it off and they couldn’t get rid of it…….no surprises there…….
they took away the parking!
Anon – they had an agreement in place for space in the ramp behind the diner. I knew people who worked there, and that is where they all parked. I really don’t think the River Ramp has anything to do with that building sitting empty – their biggest issue is that it is not really good for anything other than office space – and the main level isn’t even suitable for a bank because there is no place to put a drive-up nor is their a connected surface lot for customers.
Since there is a lot of commercial space available downtown right now, that building isn’t all that attractive to an investor, so there it sits.
At first I thought it would be a unique campaign until I understood all of the flaws with it. Maybe the suburbanites will use it, who knows.
@Craig – It’s too bad that someone doesn’t come in and put a few million into the renovation of the Surety building and turn it into a first floor restaurant/lobby of an actual Marriott/Hilton/Hyatt hotel and add a few floors to the building. That’s prime real estate along Phillips Avenue for something like that, it’s too bad it pushes towards the edge of the retail district and into the business district.
that is where they all parked.
That’s as I recall it too. Now that western surety has moved, is this ramp fully occupied? If it is, then I suspect it is because of the loss of the river ramp. Anyone know how much leased rates have gone up in the past few years?
so there it sits.
Seems hard for me to imagine that. Spent about a year there from the time the first beam was laid til it was open for business. I was always impressed with the second floor and the openness of its atrium area. I’m sure that’s all been cubicled off by now.
Why can’t this building be filled again? After all it is located within the motherlode of SF. As we are constantly reminded DT is thriving with life and is the heartbeat of this community.
CCFlyer on 08.31.13 at 2:23 am
it pushes towards the edge of the retail district….
you mean the 2 1/2 blocks on Phillips Avenue?
I think we have a lot of folks who live in SF who have come from small towns. They think this is an urban area, when in fact it is just a very small city on the prairie!
Last I heard leased off street parking in DT SF is running at 75% being leased out. Optimum per the “experts” say that number should run at 85%. Lease rates have also climbed 20% in the last 6 years. Not too bad for six years, but at the same time, have the cubicle warriors who paid this increase also seen a 20% pay increase in the same time frame?
Why do we already have 10 million budgeted out to 2015 for the construction of a DT ramp? If we are 10% short right now of optimum lease rates? This plan makes little sense. At $18,000 per parking spot, on its own it would have to charge between $180 and $240 a month at full occupancy to break even. The variance between 180 and 240 depends on the degree of upkeep and maintenance the city boozes to out into it. Based on the last few years that degree would be minimal. Still, no one can afford $180 a month lease rates. This can only float if existing ramps and lease spots are dramatically increased in prices. That $67 a month you’re paying now at the yet to be met optimum levels at the block 11 ramp will cost you $100 a month by 2016. Mark it down.
A little birdy told me tonight ClickRain was fired over the Gold P saying. Not sure if it is true. Q-Tip is scrambling.
MMM should also fire the person at city hall who approved the gold pee.
Got it…As long as I put my cell phone in a cup holder I can use it as a GPS. Even though the law says I can’t. So now it should also be legal to stream Pandora, XM Radio, podcasts etc. as long as I leave the cell phone in a cup holder. Nice to know. I already do those things, but now at least someone from the city has given those activities their blessing. I normally do this with my phone in its mount on the dash. I’ll move it down to the cup holder.
This whole marketing campaign proves what I have known for years, Darrin Smith doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground. That is why MMM loves him so much, both worthless salesman, but when it comes to brass tacks, they bolt.