On September 4th, Kirkwood City Council unanimously voted down a contract with a local company, Fybr, for a technological solution that aimed to address the parking issue in Downtown Kirkwood. I was disappointed by that decision because I've long been a fan of Kirkwood's previous adoption of the technology and especially its long-term potential. The… Continue reading String of Errors Leads to Rejection of Parking Solution
Back in December, Kirkwood issued a Request for Proposals on the two city-owned parking lots on Jefferson Avenue, which ultimately yielded six separate proposals for each of the two lots. By mid-June 2024, however, the newly elected City Council reneged on the forward-looking initiative and opted to reject each of the twelve proposals submitted in… Continue reading IPG Boutique Hotel & Parking Proposal Rejected by City
On nearly every new post I publish, I get some variation of the same comment: "What about parking?" Many of these commenters will acknowledge that all of the official studies of Kirkwood's parking have found no shortage of available parking but insist that their own informal experiences prove otherwise. Go to Downtown Kirkwood on any… Continue reading How to Solve The Parking Problem (and Cut Taxes)
Imagine we made housing free in Kirkwood for everyone. Kirkwood has good schools, low crime, and a quaint Downtown with lots of good restaurants and shops, so I imagine our free homes would be quite popular. Actually, even if it didn't have all those things, it'd be quite popular; where the hell else are you… Continue reading What If We Made Housing Free
A couple of weeks ago, I reviewed some of the insights that could be gleaned from the failed Proposition 1 vote. This week, I want to offer some ideas to fill the funding hole Prop 1 left. As I said then, Kirkwood still has potholes to fill, bike lanes to stripe, and trails to construct.… Continue reading Leverage The Lots, Balance the Books
Kirkwood has struggled with parking for as long as it has excelled at attracting people. The mindset amongst Kirkwood's recent political leadership seems to be that if you tear enough buildings down and reserve enough surface area for parking, parking will no longer be an issue. This is true. It true, not because the supply… Continue reading Paid Parking: A Case to be Made
