In today's Bulletin: Valet service brings a bit of big city to downtown.

Bend Valet plans to begin operations Friday evening, and for $7, patrons can drop off their vehicle downtown and be done with it....

The company will operate from a kiosk at the northeast corner of Brooks Street and Oregon Avenue, directly across from the Pine Tavern.

Customers will be able to drop off their cars at the kiosk, and Bend Valet employees — identified by orange shirts and khaki pants — will then drive the cars across Newport Avenue to park them in the lot behind the old Elks Building, which now houses Randall & Thomas Furniture and Boondocks Bar and Grill [formerly Joker's].

They plan to run from 5pm until 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays (and on special event weekends); and right now the Pine Tavern is on board, offering a $3 discount for patrons.

Overall, I'm not sure what to make of this... on one hand, it's going to be a tough sell, but on the other hand, who knows, they might be successful. Some thoughts:

• You can't just "drive across Newport Avenue" from Brooks Street to go park—there's a concrete lane divider right there on that stretch of Newport (in front of Brooks). They'll have to go the long way around. That doesn't sound like it helps traffic much.
• How long before some random person puts on an orange shirt and khakis and just takes off with the car someone gives them?
• Is this a reaction to the City backing off their plan to charge for Mirror Pond lot parking?
• According to the article, there are "roughly 40 restaurants" downtown! I knew the number was high, but not that high.

It's going to be interesting to see the reactions to this.

This summer, two major parking lots downtown will no longer be free.

The city of Bend will eliminate free parking in its two Mirror Pond parking lots this summer and install an electronic “pay and display” system instead, Jeff Datwyler, the city’s downtown manager, announced Wednesday at a meeting of the Bend Downtowners Association.

Currently, the city allows two hours of free parking in the lots, which are on the north and south sides of the Mirror Pond Gallery on Brooks Street. Users who stay longer are required to pay $1 for each additional hour by inserting money into a nearby drop box.

Datwyler said by eliminating free parking in the lots, it will force employees to park elsewhere, freeing up space for visitors who are likely to spend money in downtown businesses. Datwyler said the average retail customer stays downtown for 90 minutes.

I think this is a terrible, terrible idea. In my opinion one of downtown Bend's great strengths is the free-for-two-hour parking that we have everywhere, even if it is (ab)used by people who work downtown. It makes it easy and inviting to visit, and more likely for visitors to spend money there... whereas, I think converting those lots to paid parking will have the opposite effect: visitors will be less likely to spend money downtown—if they even stay downtown because they can't find free (and quick and easy) parking.

Duncan nails it (and even has a comment already proving my previous point):

I really, really hate this idea.

"Datwyler said by eliminating free parking in the lots, it will force employees to park elsewhere, freeing up space for visitors who are likely to spend money in downtown businesses."

Park elsewhere? Gee, I wonder where? Maybe where there is FREE PARKING?

Visitors likely to spend money? You mean tourists, don't you? What about destination customers who want to park, go in and do their business, and leave? Not spend 90 minutes browsing downtown shops?

So this will just guarantee that no one who actually lives here will actually shop in downtown Bend? (It's bad enough, already.)

...In any event, I don't think it will work. The people who move their cars every two hours (known by all as, 'parking tag') aren't going to change now...they'll just move the arena to the rest of downtown — to the parking spots on my street, for instance, to the spots in front of my store!

Something I didn't see mentioned: what about the Farmer's Market during the summer? It's held every Wednesday right there at the top of Drake Park adjacent to the Mirror Pond parking lot, and all those vendors use the parking lot to load/unload their products (and park). Will there be a special exemption made for them? Or will they be charged (something I could certainly see making them move the Farmer's Market elsewhere)? What about other festivals/events?

Overall, I'm not against paid parking—but I think if Bend wants to go that route, there should be new lots built instead of converting the existing (and already scarce) downtown free parking to paid.

Funny how all the business owners and visitors quoted in the above article don't like the idea. Add me to that group, too.