They paved North 75th Street, put up a parking lot
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Nov. 11—Dear Answer Man: They are building a huge parking lot just west of U.S. Highway 52 at 75th Street. What is the secret purpose? — No Parking.
Dear No Parking,
You must be a Joni Mitchell fan.
The former cornfield that is now cement and parking stalls doesn't quite qualify as paradise in my book, but I've never been a farmer. Still, that parking lot on the west side of Highway 52 might make Rochester more of a paradise since more than 400 vehicles daily — according to Noloan Schild, parking systems manager for the city of Rochester — will sit quietly out on the edge of town rather than try to push their way into the limited downtown space.
According to Schild, the new park-and-ride lot will begin offering service next spring. Construction, minus the bus shelters, which will be installed next spring, should be done later this month. Parking at the lot will be free, but riders will pay Rochester Public Transit bus fees to ride the bus to their destinations and back.
The $2.8 million project is currently under budget, Schild said. That should be a big hit with taxpayers.
While exact routes have not been determined by the city's transit team — again, they've got some time to nail all that down — the intent is that the service will be from the park-and-ride location to downtown. As to the times buses will serve the lot each day, Schild said to take a look at other similar park-and-ride locations. For example, at the 37th Street park-and-ride lot at IBM, buses start just after 5 a.m. and continue running until after 7 p.m.
Anytime after that, as Joni might say, you'll need a "Big Yellow Taxi," or at least an Uber, which is the modern-day equivalent.
"Ooh, bop-bop-bop-bop."
Note: Answer Man didn't move the decimal point correctly when talking about the $205 million sales tax extension. That's 20,500,000,000 pennies. Answer Man — who is usually pretty good at math — got the wrong answer.
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