The City of Menlo Park hosted an open house to explain research collected during its recent Downtown Parking Management Study and gather feedback on the future of parking, loading, and street space. On Sept. 25, city staff at the Arrillaga Recreation Center set up stations that displayed a variety of data and key terms from the study, inviting residents to answer questions on their stances on future parking policy.
Menlo Park is working to meet the state’s 1,490 required units of affordable housing. One of the options the City has been exploring is replacing downtown parking lots with affordable housing developments. Though additional parking is in the current plans for the downtown development, some residents and store owners are concerned that parking will be scarce and traffic will worsen.
What is Parking Management?
Parking management, according to an information board at the Open House, refers to the use of tools such as time limits and permits to determine who can park where and for how long, with the goal of ensuring fair access to a shared public resource.
Attendees used purple stickers to indicate their opinions and wrote on sticky notes with intense messages like “DO NOT REMOVE EXISTING PARKING.”
Some attendees felt the Open House was partially disingenuous. “I wanted to see what kind of propaganda they were putting out about their parking management study,” Mary Seaton, a Menlo Park resident and member of Save Downtown Menlo, said.
City staff, however, emphasized that the study’s purpose was to match parking spaces with demand. “We are actually very interested in finding how people use the parking spaces, what they visit the most, so that we can make the parking supply much more efficient to use so that people don’t drive around for too long,” Menlo Park’s Public Works Director Azalea Mitch said.
Where is Parking Turnover most important?
Turnover is defined as how often a spot opens for a new driver. High-turnover spaces are often seen where lots of short trips happen—including cafes, grocery stores, and grab-and-go retail. Many residents placed purple dots around Trader Joe’s, indicating that the Menlo Avenue-Cutis Street intersection in particular needs more quick in-and-out stalls instead of day-long parking.
“We really need surface-level parking. It’s not replaceable,” Seaton said.
“We could be using the space much more efficiently and still have just as much parking, but in a more sort of streamlined way, where everyone knows where to go to park and get to all the services and stores they use downtown,” Menlo Park resident Lesley Feldman said.
Where is loading and unloading needed?
On another informational board, purple dots gravitated toward Ace Hardware, Draeger’s Market, and restaurants where delivery trucks, grocery pickups, and rideshare services take away crucial curb space without dedicated loading and unloading spots. The primary goal of dedicated loading and unloading windows is to protect bike lanes and crosswalks while keeping short-stay parking spots available for customers.
“The future [of Menlo Park] looks like a downtown that is safe and pleasant—walkable and accessible—while making sure vehicles that do come aren’t driving around trying to find those spaces,” Mitch said.
Residents seemed to agree. “Parking could be restructured more thoughtfully so people can get to services and stores downtown,” Feldman added.
What do you want to see in Downtown Menlo Park?
Attendees shared a long wish list—more restaurants and retail, trees and landscaping, lighting and safety upgrades, and better bike and pedestrian access. Many stressed that any new parking rules should not place extra burdens on families or small businesses.
Aside from parking, the Open House included information about potential changes with the road closure on the 600 block of Santa Cruz Avenue, stretching from Starbucks to Left Bank. Menlo Park is working with M-Group, an urban planning organization, to create design concepts for the plaza, while also collecting public feedback.
“[Santa Cruz Avenue] was closed down during Covid to facilitate parkways for local businesses and outdoor dining,” Assistant Urban Designer at M-Group Lorrin French said. “Now that [Menlo Park] has kind of proven this concept to some degree, we’re thinking ‘how can we potentially make this permanent?’”
“I envision this space being multi-functional—you could host farmers markets, city events, and it already supports outdoor dining,” French added. “The social components are what make it exciting.”
What do other downtowns with parking management look like?
The final board referenced local examples where parking management creates a more welcoming downtown environment. In San Carlos, shifting parking to side streets freed up the main corridor for walking, biking, and easier business access. Storefronts became easier to reach on foot, and restaurants gained more outdoor dining space without losing customers.
In Burlingame, city planners widened sidewalks with more decorative paving, planted trees, and landscaped to create a more welcoming, plaza-like feel. Cars still had a place to park, but the design clearly put people first by encouraging them to stroll and linger downtown.
“Downtown needs people,” Feldman said. “Bring the people, and we’ll figure out what to do with the cars—because downtown can’t survive without people.”
Share your opinions on downtown Menlo Park parking through this survey.
