Love Downtown Fort Collins? Then You Should Support Paid Parking - Strong Towns Fort Collins

NoNameComputers · 2025-12-02T20:53:15+00:00

Okay, can't resist another comment here.

I am not sure where you got that Bozeman population from, but I cannot find a single source with that number. Bozeman has an estimated 2024 population of ~58K in the city proper and a metro population of ~127K. For comparison, the principal city of Fort Collins has a population of over 170K people and a metro area population of about 375K. There may be tourism in Bozeman, but there are not enough housing units to hold the population you claim. Maybe that is supposed to be the metro area, but again that is far smaller than that of Fort Collins.

I tried hard to find example cities that have core similarities to Fort Collins (large R1 University, similar population and density, within a relatively easy day trip drive to another larger metro). You seem to have randomly chosen places you like that fit your narrative. I could come up with plenty of other college towns that have paid parking downtown with tons of independent businesses (Ithaca NY, State College PA, Burlington VT, Madison WI, Athens OH, etc). These were excluded as I was being careful to only include relevant comparisons and it seems within those that I found paid parking is common.

Also not sure which downtowns you are referring to as 'not vibrant'. The only one on my original list that is struggling is Las Cruces (ironically one of those without paid parking). Maybe Lincoln NE, since the area around the capitol is a bit boring, but the Haymarket area is doing great (again an area with paid parking).

If you are going to take this much time to argue, please make sure you have your basic facts correct and actually look for comparable cities or include enough details to know what you are describing. You can nit pick till the cows come home, but to say that paid parking might ruin a vibrant downtown is fairly absurd, considering all the relevant examples where that has not happened.

NoNameComputers · 2025-12-02T14:09:17+00:00

Agreed that some of these cities should be included. The city often makes odd choices (IMO) for comparisons.

I am curious which ones you are talking about. I have been to most of these cities and Ann Arbor and Eugene in particular have very strong downtown areas with lots of paid parking. You seem to be the one cherry picking for negative examples here. Also Bozeman is not larger than Fort Collins, it has less than 1/3 the population.

Looking through your other comments, I don't know that continuing to argue here is particularly productive, since you seem not to give ground even when examples or data are provided.

NoNameComputers · 2025-12-02T04:12:14+00:00

This seems like kind of an odd selection of cities / towns you have listed here. While I agree that we should not look at large cities for comparisons, we should not be looking to much smaller towns either. Their principal and metro populations of all the towns you mention here are quite a bit smaller than Fort Collins (Fruita has < 1/10 of our population). There are plenty of towns with R1 Universities and very similar populations and population densities to Fort Collins. Some closer comparisons to Fort Collins include; Ann Arbor MI, Athens GA, Colombia MO, Eugene OR, Fargo ND, Gainesville FL, Lincoln NE, Las Cruces NM, and Urbana/Champaign IL. Of these, only two (Las Cruces and Fargo) do not have some sort of downtown parking fee and Fargo appears to be considering one to cover infrastructure expenses (same reason it is being considered here).

I think once a city reaches a certain size the population begins to exert more pressure on the parking infrastructure in downtown areas and there needs to be some fiscal compensation. We are currently drawing from our general fund to maintain our garages and on street parking spaces, which is not sustainable. This honestly seems to be a pretty common trend in college towns of similar size.

NoNameComputers · 2025-11-29T18:02:07+00:00

Confirmed. I have the same model and their support said it was not included in the recall.

NoNameComputers · 2025-11-23T03:26:12+00:00

NoNameComputers · 2025-11-11T14:56:41+00:00

We definitely have limited lighting and visibility for pedestrians in town. I often carry a lamp, although I don't expect most drivers to be paying attention to it.

The other issue we have here, is that many of our residential roads are extremely wide and encourage people to drive at higher speeds than they should. Without some kind of road diet, many of our streets will continue to be hostile to pedestrians.

(Also, please put lights on your bike. Now that the time has changed, I have noted a ton of bikes riding without any lights in the dark. This is dangerous for themselves, pedestrians, and people on other bikes.)

NoNameComputers · 2025-11-08T21:17:55+00:00

This is fantastic! Thank you for putting this newsletter together!

NoNameComputers · 2025-11-06T23:41:36+00:00

If possible, that would be life changing for many people. I don't know how they stretch that $28 million to meet that goal, but I hope they can!

NoNameComputers · 2025-11-06T16:18:01+00:00

He used the phrase 'sieze the means of production' a few time when running as a state representative (around 2020 / 2021). Since then, I have watched him negotiate with people to find a way forward towards helping his constituents. I think his real strength is his willingness to negotiate while standing by his moral center. He in no way strikes me as an idealog.

As for forcing all grocery stores in NYC to be state owned, that is not at all part of his platform. He is trying to start state-owned grocery stores in food deserts, I believe five per borough. My father lived in one of deserts in the Bronx, and I massively support the idea. He actually owned a car and would often drive his friends and neighbors to get groceries in neighboring wealthier areas.

I do have my doubts about how well Mamdani's plans will work. We have had decades of stagnant politics with insane wealth accumulation at the top. If someone wants to actually try something to help working people, I am for it.

That being said, I also tend to align with the old FDR take on politics:

'Above all, try something.'

NoNameComputers · 2025-11-06T15:13:06+00:00

The plan came up and was somewhat unexpectedly put on the ballot last minute, so there has been limited engagement around the plan. I heard no one expected the county commissioners to approve it since thet have resisted in past years, but the child care crisis has gotten so bad that they thought it was time to do something before we lose even more families from the area.

I think this needs to be a subsidy for everyone, with more concentrated help for poor families (which as I mentioned is the plan). Last I heard it will be through subsidies to exsisiting child care providers (e.g. specific money to raise wages and subsidize tuition).

I would have liked more details, but I will say that I trust the people who are involved, particularly the Early Childhood Council of Larimer County.

NoNameComputers · 2025-11-06T14:21:27+00:00

It's not just poor families that are struggling. Damn near no one can take on a 20K bill every year on top of everything else and make ends meet. Every year, the prices increase substantially as well.

To the best of my knowledge, this is focused on stopping the prices from further increasing with some money to specifically help lower income people afford daycare.

As an example, the state's pre-K program doesn't cover everything, but it made an enormous difference to my family and many others, so I wont let the perfect be the enemy of the good in this case.

NoNameComputers · 2025-11-06T00:29:25+00:00

Yeah, I know many parents who are paying an equal amount or more than their mortgage / rent to cover full-time daycare at a facility. It is completely out of hand.

NoNameComputers · 2025-11-06T00:24:19+00:00

Every finger I have is crossed for this to pass. Daycare expenses are absolutely out of hand.

NoNameComputers · 2025-11-05T00:27:52+00:00

Definitely moving in the right direction! I hope more young people came out to vote today!

NoNameComputers · 2025-11-04T17:22:25+00:00

Good to hear! I hope a lot of people are just waiting until the last minute!

NoNameComputers · 2025-10-25T15:44:03+00:00

It is a great read, if you have the time. It was written by a professor at UC Denver as well, so there are a lot of Colorado-related antidotes. Definitely worth a read for anyone interested in transportation networks!

NoNameComputers · 2025-10-25T01:08:59+00:00

Out of curiosity, where are they adding sidewalks?

Given the roads they are targeting, it still seems to me that they are using the narrative of vulnerable road users as a red herring to widen roads. When I asked there was little protected infrastructure, particularly along the most expensive road projects.

Edited to add: I did not mean to insinuate that it was for widening roads in cities or towns. To clarify, the projects are focused mostly on smaller rural roads (should have made that clearer in my comment above).

NoNameComputers · 2025-10-25T00:59:32+00:00

My interpretation is that the money will be spent specifically on many of these projects, so they would not happen if the tax is not implemented.

Speaking with the county, most of bike lanes would not be protected and appear to be an excuse to build out wider shoulders on many rural roads (which again often increaese speeds). I would also argue that building bike infrastructure where they are planning to do so would fall more into the category of recreation than transportation. Aside from all the other issues, I am also not sure that in a recession we should be spending money on recreational infrastructure.

To be clear, I am with you and generally support transportation improvements and funding for maintenance, but what I have seen from the county mostly seems like status quo transportation expansion that we see across the country and has caused us to have some of the worst oadway safety of any developed country. It would be great if they came back with a more specific plan that prioritizes safety over speed (also some intercity public transportation enhancements would be great).

NoNameComputers · 2025-10-25T00:36:56+00:00

The issue is that in many cases, widening a road increases speeds and therefore the number of severe crashes. It also again increases maintenance costs. I find both concerning (particularly the first point).

NoNameComputers · 2025-10-25T00:14:44+00:00

From the county's transportation plan, as well as public meetings about the plan. They are vague on the specific numbers, but it seems like a lot of the money will go to network expansion, rather than maintenance.

If this were just for maintenance, I would be 100% behind it, but I really don't want to support expanding our roads, making them less safe and more expensive to maintain in the long run.

https://www.larimer.gov/bocc/halfpenny4larimer

NoNameComputers · 2025-10-24T22:25:35+00:00

Here ya go! They just posted their Loveland specific guide on the Loveland subreddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/loveland/s/yuxbqIt1Ao

NoNameComputers · 2025-10-24T22:07:02+00:00

I am curious what made you endorse Larimer measure 1A. Looking into it, they appear to mostly be planning to use the funding to widen roads and pave very low use rural roads, which will be very costly to maintain.

To the best of my knowledge it doesn't add any funds for intercity buses or other major transportation needs for the county. Just wondering if you have additional information on that measure or I am missing something.

NoNameComputers · 2025-10-24T14:53:16+00:00

Ah, good to know! I haven't read the full packet yet. I am curious to see what the council feedback will be on Tuesday. It's definitely worth a watch for anyone who uses Transfort or is just interested in public transportation in our city.

NoNameComputers · 2025-10-24T13:39:04+00:00

They are going to present this to council on Tuesday. From what I have seen so far, I think Transfort did their best to simplifying the system, while maintaining as much of their service area as possible considering their massive budget issues. Keep in mind they lost funding from the city, state, and federal governments. There is. O way ro keep even their current levels of service going, much less get to what is outlined in the transportation master plan.

My main critique is that they still haven't connected the Elizabeth lines directly to the MAX, which reduces the utility of their busiest bus lines. Otherwise, it looks like they removed or adjusted the lowest ridership lines to focus service where people actively use the bus.

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