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Main St Greenville vs Main St Columbia


vicupstate

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My problem with metered parking is I live in the 21st Century and never have any coins on me. I guess I could buy a parking meter card, but what a pain. I say up the fines for people overstaying their welcome in two-hour spaces and enforce and collect at all costs.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thats a good map. It shows more than you think too. There is more retail on Main St than people realize. There's just not many restaurants. The problem is that the part of Main St where people want to be is dominated by faceless skyscrapers and the part with all the good historic buildings is waaay down at the other end. With Columbia's extra large block sizes it is essential to have quality urban design to draw people, especially tourists, that far away. The streetscaping will probably help, as will the downtown ambassador program. We can only hope that the new skyscrapers will be able to emulate what the city has lost.

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"South Carolina's Main Street"... is everything in the Columbia's considered "South Carolina's"?

I like the map. It shows a good number of parks or plazas on Main. Can I ask how well those are used on a day-to-day basis? I know that an open area like that is very hard to design in order to get the public to use it. A lot of times the main usage becomes the area on the fringes (which also happens to be the same spaces that would only be used if a building occupied the lot). So, for these spaces, other than maybe aesthetic purposes, do they fulfill their function as a public space (in terms of use)?

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^"South Carolina's Main Street" started being used a few years ago in conjunction with the first phase of the streetscaping, kicking off the revitalization. It's pretty much just a local marketing strategy.

In terms of the parks and plazas, there's the plaza that will front the new tower at Gervais and Main. The restaurant on the ground floor will front the plaza. The one at the corner of Main and Lady is just there for aesthetic purposes; I believe the bank plans to use it for future office space. Boyd Plaza fronting the the art museum is the most utilized of the bunch. Some events are held there, there's the new fountain that draws interest from pedestrians, and art exhibits are sometimes located there also. The pocket park next to the Tapp's building is more of a "private" park used for residents. The map should have designated the Statehouse grounds as a park, since it essentially functions as one.

I still contend that the biggest gap in the urban fabric of Main is where the county judicial center is located. I'd really like to see what commercial buildings that huge monolith replaced. Whenever the county builds a new courthouse (and who knows when that will be), it would be good to see that block restored with commercial uses.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Free parking won't solve your problems. Its simple economics. When you have a high demand for something, you charge more to regulate that demand. The demand is what it is because there is free parking to be had. People have to get past the mindset that they are entitled to free parking.

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Of course, it's not free during the week, at least not the garage that I park in. It is astounding how much traffic floods the garage as soon as the gates open. For most of the day, the garage is... at most... 15-20% full. As soon as 6pm hits on Friday, the entire garage jumps to about 80-85% full.

Ironically, it's hurting business downtown. Business traffic during the day is limited, people refuse to go anywhere off of Main. All of those problems go away once you stop imposing a fee on visitors after the free spots are taken. Allow downtown owners to comp garage parking... charge for street parking... problems fixed... downtown operates closer to capacity... people walk off of Main, expanding the opportunities for retail... generating density... etc, etc, etc.

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