Downtown discussion: Is it time to try diagonal parking?

(Downtown Decorah leaders met last week to discuss a variety of issues involving Decorah's business district.  All this week decorahnews.com's Paul Scott will summarize some of the issues raised):

Several years ago, Decorah experimented with diagonal parking on Water Street.  The public, for the most part, hated the change.

But maybe it's time to put aside our Scandinavian aversion to change and try another diagonal parking experiment.  Here's what downtown consultant Roger Brooks says about diagonal parking:

•     It increases the number of parking spaces by a third
•     Angle-in parking is easy and quick
•     Nobody likes parallel parking
•     It slows traffic and does not create more congestion
•     It's not true that angle-in parking is more dangerous
•     Angle-in parking increases spending by more than 20 percent

Because downtown Decorah has become a popular tourist destination and because the numbers of restaurants, coffee shops, gift shops and stores have increased, it's often difficult to find a parking spot downtown.

We could spend a lot of money to build a parking ramp--or we could do something that would increase parking and cost next to nothing.

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