There is also something more fundamental and much easier to manage that does not involve monkeying with the traffic pattern. Regardless of rents, many shop owners are not taking care of their store fronts, most of the tree wells look like crap, and their are weeds in the cracks of most sidewalks and even in the street at the curb. Those that do take care of their responsibilities understand that it is not extra but a requirement for a healthy business to keep your storefront looking welcoming and well cared for.

I think the four hour parking limit is a good start but if the point to the parking “question” is that resolving it is the panacea to all Carytown challenges, I think the work necessary is further up on the sidewalk than in the street.

There’s varied words about shifts and shufflings about the empty spaces scattered throughout this site. We’ve got a video game store going into the former Decor, Glassboat is moving into another space, Penzey’s spices moved in, something is going into the former Elephant’s Toe. But that’s just a few.

For a bit of history, S & K used to have a big men’s store in what became Pirouzan Oriental Rugs, way back in the early 1980s, and it was actually boarded up for awhile.

Carytown within the past 15 years had two hardware stores that had been there between them probably 40 years, one of which was Lorraine, that half-Tudor place that forms part of Leo Burke now.

That there isn’t a hardware store today in Cartown is more symptomatic of the problems small hardware retailers–and small retailers period–have had in the face of national franchises.

Any word on shops moving into the vacant spaces? A moderate priced men’s shop would be nice. How about a small hardware store?

Plus, if you wanted to visit the new car-free Carytown, you’d have to park a few blocks away and walk, even if you were just hopping in. People who work in Carytown will take up all the close parking in the alleys (which would be full of traffic, great) and this would decrease business.

Goldman lost my vote.

Regardless: has anyone bothered to try and park in the two free parking decks in Carytown? Someone should go and monitor the number of cars in them over the course of the week. I feel like no on knows they are even there.

And plus, why would you want to park *on* Cary St. It’s like a death wish.

And then I visit the paper’s website and bam…

http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-06-20-0244.html