All comments posted by users on the Greater Greater Washington post "U Street reconstruction rev-U" http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=1119 en-us http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=1119#comment-10909 Esteban: A performance parking program would discourage people from driving into U Street by charging visitors who want to park there. They can pay a few dollars to drive, or they can save the money and take transit. Those who need to drive will have more spaces available. And with the lowered demand, it'd be possible to give a few spaces over to wider sidewalks without unduly burdening the neighborhood. As for the fire station, the fire entrance isn't on the corner, it's farther east. You could put retail on the corner (which is the back of the police station), adding police space and other uses in new floors above, keeping the fire entrance where it is. http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=1119#comment-10909 Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:29:47 EDT http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=1119#comment-10896 Eliminating parking spaces on U Street will force more cars into the residential area, where parking is already becoming near impossible. Families with young children coming home from the grocery store or disabled residents now have to drive around and park farther away to shlep their children and groceries. This will aggravate the problem. You can't put street level retail on the northeast corner of 17th and U street if there is a fire station. Rescue vehicles need a wide open path to a major street. So forget that plan. When Metro built an office building at the 13th street rail entrance of U Street Cardozo station, they removed a set of bike lockers. Those should be put back in somewhere, maybe at the 10th st. exit. I wish there were a way to discourage people from driving into the U Street nightlife area instead of using taxis and mass transit. One solution might be 24 hour parking restrictions with late night enforcement. The commercial loading problem is on 14th Street, south of U Street all the way to the circle. Bike traffic is heavy on those lanes and yet we all have to swerve around delivery vehicles who plop themselves right in the bike lanes. http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post.cgi?id=1119#comment-10896 Tue, 12 Aug 2008 23:02:43 EDT