One of the topics discussed at the Young Professionals Task Force was downtown resident parking.

I love that idea.

Shane and I lived at 251 Asylum Street across from the Hartford Civic Center for three years. Our apartment was amazing: 1,200 square feet, hardwood floors, exposed brick walls, windows tall enough for me to stand in, two bedrooms, two full bathrooms, a washer and dryer (rockin'!) and a gigantic skylight. The living room was so huge that you could ride a bike in it.  And we did.

We met some of our bestest friends ever living in that building.

But we didn’t have a place to park our single car (a Geo Metro), which was a nuisance as street parking was free after five (after six now) and overnight, but you had to move your car off the street in the morning. We both worked downtown and walked to work, so there was nowhere to put the car during the day. We ended up renting a parking space at what used to be the Ramada across from Union Station, which was about three blocks west of our apartment, and it was freakin' expensive.

We didn’t mind the walk to the car; we rarely used it. But there was some pain involved in the arrangement. There was an ever-rotating staff of parking attendants at the Ramada who frequently didn’t believe us when we told them that we were monthly parkers. A few times we had unpleasant arguments with them and a couple of times at night we just gave up and found a spot on the street.

Bringing up groceries was a hassle. (Grocery shopping is pretty much why we had a car in the first place.) Typically we had to double-park with our hazards flashing while one of us stood watch while the other locked the elevator (sorry neighbors!) and ran back and forth loading up bags. We received some stern talkings-to from the police

Having resident parking would be great for a few reasons. One of them is that downtown residents who don’t have parking facilities in their apartments or condos will have parking. Another is the perception factor: if you have resident parking, and residents get groovy little resident parking stickers and park in resident-only parking areas, it just might be the proof needed that people do live downtown, which might make other people think that they could live downtown too. Finally there would be a nice source of revenue for the city for an annual resident parking sticker. (Plus you could have a really great party while spending the night outside City Hall, lined up waiting for the doors to open on that first day the stickers are offered. It's kinda like buying the next Harry Potter book. You could wear costumes!)

I’m sure there are other great reasons but I’m not an expert in resident parking.

All I know is that if Shane and I had been given an opportunity to purchase a resident parking sticker when we lived downtown, we would have done it in a New York, uh Hartford, minute.