Why the insistence on taking on one piece at a time, with little consideration for all the various problems and aggregate potential in this very important, and publicly-owned part of downtown?

In terms of retail at the structure, there are many kinds of businesses that could locate there and not be in direct competition with existing businesses and some existing local businesses could be asked if they would like a satellite at this location. Shoe repair, pastries and coffee, quick copies, sandwiches, news stands are just a few that come to mind that would cater to people in transit. Even people staying downtown need these kinds of services before or after their business downtown is accomplished. The support of some kinds of business could actually be indirect support for other existing businesses. One less trip to the mall keeps people downtown.

But wouldn’t it profit us to focus on how to get AATA ridership up? We have a great asset here, but it’s under utilized. My own judgment of the AATA’s performance–based on my family’s experience–is that the routing is off. Part of the problem with the routing is the hub system. I understand that grid systems also pose problems. Perhaps we need a hybrid. Here’s an example: for my kids to have gotten to Pioneer from our house on Brooks (which is basically an extension of 7th) they would have taken the bus from our house to Blake then another to Pioneer. I always wondered why there wasn’t a bus that ran on 7th–the whole length. Well that would be a bus that did not connect back to Blake. For trips that originate outside of downtown and end outside of downtown, the hub system does not work so well.

Yeah, it looks like I’ve thrown another spanner in the works. But why not get it right. Let’s work out the routing issues with the bus system then decide what to do on Fourth Ave.

It’s currently just a pilot program, with half a dozen users, just to get the technology dialed in. DDA board member Roger Hewitt is one of the pilot participants, and my guess is that he’d be happy to tell you more about the specifics — everything I’ve reported (in this comment thread and elsewhere for The Chronicle) about the pilot AVI program has come from Hewitt’s updates at board meetings about how things are going with it.

I don’t think that’s being considered.

But Sundays represent a challenge for one of the demand management measures that the DDA is currently piloting: use of AVI cards for pay-as-you-go parking passes — instead of monthly parking passes, which are currently used. The road to the Sunday connection is long and winding. So strap in.

Currently, if you have a monthly parking pass, then it costs set amount and it’s tied to particular structure. Once you have your pass, you have no incentive not to drive and park: “I have already paid for a parking pass for the whole month, so why would I want to walk/bicycle/bus/carpool if I had a chance?” The AVI cards, which are magically read at the gate of a structure from the dashboard of a car through the windshield (I think), simply records when you entered and exited and automatically deducts from your credit card once a month for the amount of time you’ve parked. Doesn’t matter which structure you use.

If you have a pass at Maynard, say, and the sign says there’s 10 spaces left, then hooray for you, but you get the pleasure of winding all through the structure looking for one of those spaces. If you’ve got an AVI card, good for any structure, then maybe you want to try your luck at Fourth and William, and whaddaya know there’s 250 open spaces, according to the sign. And, to reiterate the pay-as-you go aspect, if you have a pass then you pay the cost of the pass … no matter how frequently you park in a structure. With the AVI card — you don’t park, you don’t pay. So the AVI card provides some reward to people to commute by some other means besides driving and parking, and gives someone a way of regulating their own parking expenses to whatever extent that’s possible for them.

For the whole AVI system to work, the gate arms at the structures and lots need to come down and go up on entry and exit for every single car — even on Sundays when there’s no charge. I don’t fully grasp why this is the case — I believe it’s so that someone who parks, say on a Friday, then doesn’t exit until Sunday actually gets charged for the time they parked.

The real challenge is all the non-AVI users on Sundays. One solution is just to have use signage and have everyone pull a “null ticket” on entry. Pull the ticket, the gate arm goes up and lets you in. I think they’d need to staff each facility to let people out as well. There’s a communications challenge with one of the main groups of people on Sundays — church goers. They’re accustomed to being able to swing into the free parking with the gate arms fixed in the up position. So the DDA is trying to make sure that if they decide to go down that path, the church goers are as informed as possible in advance that the gate arms don’t mean they have to pay.

But thinking about [7], one position to take would be that there’ll be angry church goers anyway, who don’t read the signs, and haven’t heard the announcements at church about what the gate arms mean, so why not just go ahead and charge for parking on Sundays? Ann Arbor has experimented with free parking on Sundays versus charging for it over the years, though. And the current system of free Sunday parking is a result of that experience.

As this article notes, other cities are finding that enforcing parking meters on Sunday can both raise money and increase turnover, benefiting downtown businesses.