Opinion: Millbrook's Downtown Parking Debate Is Missing the Point

MILLBROOK, June 3 — Every few months like clockwork, the city council chambers fill up with red-faced business owners, frustrated commuters, and at least one guy holding a hand-lettered sign about the parking garage on Teller Street. We've been having the same fight for going on six years now, and I'm starting to think we're all arguing about the wrong thing.

The Real Question Nobody's Asking

Yes, downtown Millbrook has a parking problem. But here's what the data our own city planners quietly released last March actually shows: the blocks with the least available parking also have the highest foot traffic and the strongest retail sales per square foot. Scarcity, it turns out, doesn't kill business — it just makes people walk a little farther. The real question isn't whether we build a second garage on Clement Avenue. The real question is whether we want a downtown that works for cars or one that works for people. Those are genuinely different visions, and until we have that honest conversation, we'll keep spending Tuesday nights yelling about something that isn't the actual problem.

• City planners' March report noted a 14% increase in foot traffic on blocks with metered street parking vs. surface lots
• Three neighboring cities — Harwick, Dellwood, and Soren Falls — have all reduced downtown surface parking in the last decade and seen retail growth
• The proposed Clement Avenue garage would cost an estimated $4.2 million and displace two small businesses currently on the site

I'm not saying parking doesn't matter. I'm saying it's a symptom. Millbrook has a vision problem, and no number of concrete decks is going to fix that. The next time a council member stands up and says "we need more parking," someone in that room should have the nerve to ask: more parking for what, exactly? For the downtown we have, or the downtown we want to become?