Zilker Neighborhood Near 2100 South Lamar May Switch to Permitted Parking

This is what happens when you have Scott Trainer as a landlord. On one end of the neighborhood he's calling the cops on the Shady Grove because Shara Smith is too loud while he's on his deck, and on the other end he's raising the ire of the neighborhood by renting to a bar with clearly inadequate parking. Apparently the city approved the situation because a plan was submitted to have overflow park at Olivia - also owned by Scott Trainer. Which is ridiculous. There's no parking there though, when Olivia is busy. Can't have it both ways...Maybe the Black Sheep shouldn't have put a Beer Garden over what little parking lot they have.

Some of the businesses do in fact already have an agreement with the Office Depot, or have in the past. But those are useless if nobody knows about it, the businesses don't make their employees use it, and patrons won't cross Lamar if they don't have to. The RPP may help promote usage of current off-site arrangements.

With all the walkability comments, don't forget that Lamar is a pedestrian paradise compared with the Southern stretch of Kinney and Oxford. With no sidewalks, crowded parking and angled traffic off Lamar, Oxford is a prime candidate for some empty curbing, with pedestrians and bicyclists benefiting disproportionately.

Ah yes, the privatization of public streets. Let's make S. Lamar as assholish as Bouldin. There is nothing better than empty curb parking spots on permit only streets almost all the time.

I agree. Privatizing the streets is a bad move. Instead, have meters that don't encourage long-term parking and try to accomodate the owners of residential property close by.

Don't forget the inevitable traffic calming pleas that will result from the suddenly much higher vehicle speeds (parked cars are the most cost-effective traffic calming ever invented). Of course, we'll all pay for that as well.

The residents deserve permit only parking if they want it. But the city needs to make walking on South Lamar safe with wide sidewalks (and with disability access). The buildings are away from the street, because each lot has right of way reserved for future widening of Lamar (which means room for safer sidewalks).

The city only has two north-south streets from downtown to south Austin (Lamar & Congress), so traffic is only going to get worse on Lamar as overpopulation continues.

I think you're forgetting S. 1st St. as another N/S street extending from downtown into S. Austin.

I also believe unless you're handicapped, that S. Lamar is not as bad as some are making it out to be for pedestrians. Should it be improved? Absolutely. However, I walk the stretch from Bluebonnet to Mary very regularly, frequenting many of the businesses along the way. It just doesn't seem to be all that bad in my eyes. It's certainly no 2nd St., but I consider it to be walkable.

1. South Lamar (and North Lamar, equally so) are walkable in that they have sidewalks. But they're virtually uncrossable because it's often more than a mile between stoplights. If you want to cross the street, you have to run across a few lanes of highspeed traffic and take refuge in the aptly nicknamed suicide lane, before running across a few more lanes of highspeed traffic. And that's why there's an appalling number of pedestrian traffic fatalities in Austin (particularly on Lamar near 183).

2. Like Grape Ape says, the streets are a public good. You don't own the curbside parking in front of your house. The taxpayers who built and maintain that amenity do. If there are too many cars camped out in the area, perhaps parking meters would solve the problem in a way that still allows Austin residents to use their streets.

This is a bizarre comment, since the corner of Oltorf and Lamar is actually very accessible with a completely protected pedestrian signal and lowered signal buttons. If anything it should be a model.

Right, people that live at Oltorf & Lamar do have a safe easy walk. But most of Lamar between the river and Ben White is sketchy, so it the length of Lamar doesn't attract as much foot traffic. Switching people from driving down Lamar to walking Lamar is what will reduce car traffic.

This is a picture of somewhere around Oltorf/Pleasant Valley, but there are spots on Lamar like it:

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/gallery?oid=oid:940810&number=1

That's what makes Lamar sketchy to walk.

The city has plans on the backburner to make most streets more walkable, it's just a matter of when (cause it ain't cheap).

I don't think the Black Sheep Lodge was expecting to be as popular as they are in their wildest dreams. And Birds has plenty of parking. That said, I think this is a legitimate request. That bit of neighborhood by and large does not have driveways or garages and are really small houses on really small lots that barely have room for a single car in front.

The Office Depot won't have the massive amount of parking for long though, they're adding a CVS there, so there's a pretty good chance their parking lot will be heavily used.

But what about the bead shop?! Have you ever run out of beads when doing some elaborate embroidery and been unable to find a parking spot because everyone is getting a haircut?

Outrageous, I say. Completely outrageous.

Angelesque-Cap Metro did away with the Dillo service last year.

It's time for the city to begin thinking of South Lamar as an extension of downtown. We need to make the walking there a lot less "scary as hell" and run the Dillo between Ben White and downtown. If they added good lighting, crosswalks and sidewalks, a parking garage,lots of Dillo runs, maybe everybody who lives in a condo there won't feel the need to haul out the car every time they want to hear some music or have a meal. It would be nice to have a kind of a Promenade there. We need more places to walk and ride and park and fewer wreckers standing by to take your car!

I live less than a mile from this place, but the walk down Lamar is scary as hell, even on a slow traffic day. It's time to slow down the traffic on Lamar to 30 MPH and install at least three more traffic lights/crosswalks north of Bluebonnet. Lamar is no longer a viable route to the burbs. If City Hall would just get serious about inner-city density, people would be happily commuting down S. Lamar by bus to eat/drink instead of clogging it and adjacent streets up with more vehicles. This one is a no-brainer.

I don't blame the residents at all for taking this kind of action. Aren't the business owners supposed to prove that they have accomodated for ample parking before they can get their business permits? I don't think that using residential streets and parking in front of people's houses should count towards the numbers used for such parking requirements. I mean I am all for local small businesses but there needs to be some balance with the existing neighborhood, especially when it comes to parking and noise, etc.

The smart move here would be for the businesses to ink a deal with that giant Office Depot lot across the street for parking. Especially if they could get a crosswalk put in there, that would seem to solve everyone's problems.