Dear Editor:
The 916 Garden Street neighborhood-parking garage should open without delay. As an individual interested in applying technology to improving the qualify of city life, I acquainted myself with the concepts, technology, advantages and disadvantages of the automated system designed, built and operated by Robotic Parking, Inc. It is the wave of the future. Does it work? Yes. Will it stall out from time to time? Issues will come up. Does this justify making it a political football? No.
Hoboken taxpayers are already shouldering the financial burden of being the first U.S. city to place in service an innovative (and triple redundant) system for storing and retrieving cars from a weather-tight secure facility. The 916 Garden Street facade blends well with the surrounding row houses. Over 300 cars will come off neighborhood streets while a conventional garage at the same location would probably max out at 80 or 90 vehicles. Hoboken needs to collect parking fees to pay the debt service.
Will there be queuing problems along Garden Street while cars wait for storage? Possibly. Fine tuning street logistics must address this and possibly other unknown issues as a necessary part of the shakedown period once the garage opens.
For the skeptical (as I was) or downright negative, observe it in operation. I watched while Robotic Parking’s staff ran some of the many thousands of storage and retrieval cycles with and without vehicles. Introduce yourself to Gerhard Haag, Robotic Parking’s congenial president, as I did. He should answer your questions as he did mine with candor. The Hoboken Parking Authority should invite the public to see the facility operate instead of posting No Trespassing signs on every door as if it was some top secret military base.
If there was chicanery in erecting of the garage structure itself, Mayor David Roberts’ investigation should get to the bottom of it.
I encourage our mayor to continue to address Hoboken’s parking problem as well as its overall transportation issues. By embracing, for example, the management philosophy of “TQI” (total quality improvement) in transportation and other key areas of municipal service delivery, Mayor David Roberts’ leadership can help make Hoboken an even better place to visit, live, work, do business, invest, raise a family or retire.
Finally, I commend Mayor David Roberts for his recent appointments to the HPA, I know both Tony Cardino and Dr. Ed Whitaker as neighbors and thoughtful individuals. I wish them both success in strengthening the leadership and increasing the quality and quantity of service delivery by the Hoboken Parking Authority.
Joel Freiser