A solution to parking downtown.

Anybody who has gone downtown has experienced the travesty of trying to find parking. Rarely, if ever, do I find parking in front of the restaurant I want to go to, and I've even had to park a block or even 2 blocks away, making me walk almost a tenth of a mile just to get some dinner. And this is regardless of weather. Our "progressive" and "innovative" downtown is more inconveient than just going to 28th street. When I go to AppleBee's or Outback I can park and be inside within 30 seconds. In September we came downtown for TC Live and ate at The Foolery, there was no parking. We had to park in the garage across the street. When we drove over to Van Andel for the show there was no parking so we had to go BACK to the first lot we parked at over on Ionia and then get an uber to Van Andel. It was a complete waste of our time and money.

Other cities have realized this problem and fixed it. Look at Pontiac, MI for instance. They had the same problem. No parking, but no space to add more without upsetting everybody. What did they do? Routed the river underneath the city. This allowed them to add tons of parking, you can park just about anywhere in that city and the highways cutting through downtown add to the convienience. I can drive my car to every shop along the street and not have to walk at all. I've attached a picture to show how conveient it is, and circled where the river goes under and comes out of the city.

We could do the same thing with the Grand River. We desperately need at least 4-6 new lanes on 131 anyway, but people freaked out about it because it would mean tearing down buildings they like. Sometimes it takes me 10-15 minutes extra to get back to the suburbs if there's a crash. But if we put a new highway and some extra parking over the river it's a win win. The traffic and parking problem are completely solved. And for all you "transit" people, sure OK let's add a bike lane to it. We have plenty of space! I think we should leave 131 there as overflow so there are no slowdowns during rush hour or when there's a crash. I've added a mockup of what it could look like.

Now I know this will upset a lot of nature people. But I'm not suggesting covering the WHOLE river, you can still go to the river just north or south of downtown. Do you know how disgusting the river is downtown? Do you really want to go swimming in a river where gang members are probably throwing bodies in? Plus, the smell of the river is disgusting and there's always weird people fishing in public which quite frankly makes me feel unsafe. So, not a huge loss in my opinion. Honestly, routing it through will probably help protect it and make the river cleaner. So all you "environmentalists" should support protecting the river.

Interested to hear what you all think.