With all the talk about the expensive parking garages, I have seen little about what alternatives have been considered. Sounds like someone already has their mind made up and is trying to sell us on these downtown parking structures. How about some long-range planning instead, such as designing the facilities of the new proposed baseball park into an integrated transportation plan?
Maybe it should be something such as an area with parking for baseball, light rail and C-Tran — all using some of the same land and facilities and reducing costs to taxpayers and improving the transportation system.
Maybe even some college or sports-related commercial sites could be under the parking garage.
We might even be able to attract people from Portland to come to a baseball game and then visit downtown Vancouver with a fareless-square type concept. We need some creative thinking.
Bob Blakey
Vancouver
