Time for a myth buster.
There are plenty of parking spaces in Downtown Platte City. I mean, you may not be able to park right out front of your destination, but that doesn’t mean downtown doesn’t have ample parking. In other words, sometimes in this day and age we have to park and walk more than a few steps to the door of the business or government facility we’re entering.
How do I know there’s really not a lack of parking downtown? Primarily because I worked in Downtown Platte City for 40 years and have had a daily up close view of traffic patterns and parking availability. But also because I’ve done some research on busy days for court activities at the Platte County Courthouse, which those who work in law enforcement will tell you are otherwise known as traffic court days.
On a recent day when the courthouse looked crowded and parked cars filled most of the spaces on Main between Second and Fourth Streets, I ventured to the two parking lots on Third Street north of Main. You’re not aware? There are two parking lots on the west side of Third Street across from the Platte County Administration Building that are open to the public. Those lots were formerly restricted to county employee parking but, as we reported earlier this year, the county commission made the decision to remove the “employee parking only” signs and make the lots available for public use. Here’s the link to our coverage of the topic: plattecountylandmark.com/2024/05/17/platte-county-opens-two-parking-lots-for-public-use/
On three recent “it’s crowded on Main Street” days–again, that’s usually traffic ticket day–I got a visual on parking availability in those two public lots on the west side of Third Street. I will sum up the parking availability in one word: plentiful.
Available parking spaces in those two lots on the three “there’s no place to park downtown” days that I checked ranged from a low of 28 to a high of 32 spaces. I repeat, space for 28-32 more vehicles.. And that was with four spots being taken up by some apparently county-owned utility trailer in the larger of those two lots. So the conclusion of this extensive Between the Lines science experiment shows that yes, there’s plenty of parking downtown.
Sometimes you might have to walk a block or block and a half to the front door of the courthouse, or to the door of the business to which you’re headed. Welcome to 2024. Platte County isn’t a small place and Platte City isn’t really a small town. Nor, for the sake of our merchants, do you want it to be.
I’ll grant you there could be some signage placed to guide the public to those publicly-available lots. Maybe some communication to the public about parking options can be improved. Maybe the county commissioners could do a public education campaign that isn’t political this time.
Awareness might be a problem, but available parking spaces is not a problem. The next time someone tells you “there’s no parking in Downtown Platte City” give them a five word answer: “Third Street north of Main.”
Also, an employee parking lot right next to the courthouse on the east side was recently unavailable due to construction work being done to the historic courthouse. That forced some county employees to occupy the parking lot behind the former Platte City City Hall at Fourth and Main, a lot that the city recently opened for public use. Once that employee parking area near the courthouse primarily used by prosecutors and court staff is reopened–if it hasn’t already been by the time you read this– there will be more parking available for the general public in that former City Hall lot.
Here’s a link to our reporting on that former City Hall parking area now being open to the public: plattecountylandmark.com/2024/06/06/former-city-hall-parking-area-will-open-to-public/
We ran a news release on this recently and spread it on our social media outlets as well. And Guy Speckman talks about it in his column on page 3.
Get ready for a change in The Landmark’s reporting on traffic crashes that are investigated by the Missouri State Highway Patrol. And I don’t think you’re going to like it. Don’t blame the messenger, but you’ll notice our crash news stories will be much less specific from now on: We won’t be able to provide you names of folks who were involved.
Starting Nov. 1, the Missouri State Highway Patrol adopted a policy to no longer include names of people involved in crashes in their online reports. Talk about government overreach at its finest. As Speckman puts it, the highway patrol has “taken one more step to operate behind as many layers of secrecy as possible, with no apparent reason, other than strong handed government.”
The highway patrol’s new policy is to withhold public information from the public. That’s quite an accomplishment. The highway patrol won’t exactly be winning any Sunshine awards.
We live in a world where the NSA conducts warrantless surveillance of Americans’ phone calls. So the government can listen in on your cell phone calls even if you’re a law-abiding citizen. At the same time we live in a world where the Missouri State Highway Patrol is refusing to tell you if your friend, neighbor, acquaintance, or fellow community member has been involved in a traffic crash in your home county.
Welcome to more big government by control freaks.
Anybody watching those Hallmark Christmas movies yet? I’d love to join you but I can’t. The unpredictability of those extensive plot lines is too complicated for me.
Other than a week when a massive jail tax proposal gets body slammed by voters, Thanksgiving is my favorite week of the year.
We’ll get the paper put to bed early and on the street by the end of the day Monday, two days earlier than normal. This is primarily to give the post office some time to get the paper into the hands of Platte County subscribers in time to check out the Black Friday inserts that will be included in next week’s edition.
After the Monday distribution is done it gives me a chance to live without deadlines for a few days. And now you know why it’s one of my favorite weeks of the year.
I wonder how the Pilgrims charged their cell phones.
See the letter to the editor on this page about the presiding commissioner of Platte County. His emotional immaturity is showing again. Scott Fricker is going full Scott Fricker. You never wanna go full Fricker.
Fricker is the male version of Nan Johnston and Marji Gehr. A fantastic reality show would be to lock the three of them in a room and see which one is the first to go total wackadoodle.
I bet it would end in a tie.
(Find Foley following the downtown parking science)
