That's a good assessment, but I'm not sure where the idea that downtown Manchester has only three parking garages comes from. According to the
Downtown Parking Map, maintained by the City of Manchester's parking department, there are three garages downtown with short-term parking, plus another four with permit parking. I know of at least four more that are private or dedicated to particular buildings. Unfortunately, there are four sizable surface parking lots at the periphery of downtown (including Arms Park along the river and the Hartnett Lot near NHIA and the main library, both of which should be better developed) with a handful of smaller ones scattered throughout the area. This doesn't include garages at the airport and elsewhere outside of downtown. I'd guess that the majority--or at least a very sizable portion--of downtown parking is where it should be: on the street.
Between the absence of a minimum parking requirement, programs like the Green DASH (free downtown bus), and deliberately building projects like the Verizon arena and ballpark without parking, Manchester has a surprisingly progressive parking policy.
I'd also say that, while Portland has an unarguably more bustling urban core, I'm not sure that Manchester is far behind during business hours. It might be, but I'm not sure. At night and on the weekend, downtown Portland is much more packed and vibrant than downtown Manchester, but
Manchester's downtown swells from 9-5. Now it needs to find a way to extend that vibrancy after-hours, but that's a different discussion. But it seems like the City's lack of minimum parking standards--and I remember reading this in regards to
the Millyard apartments nearing completion now--allows for fewer parking spaces to work more: apartments (where some residents may drive to work during the day) can share parking spaces with daytime office-workers, and so on.
I'm also not sure what role this may play, but Manchester's downtown revival is relatively new compared to Portland's. Even though downtown Manchester has been going strong for at least the past decade, I think the idea of going downtown is still something of a novelty to many suburbanites and people living outside downtown. Not parking right out front is part of going downtown and part of the novelty, and I get the sense that while many businesses understand that better parking
or better transit options are needed, a lot people are more willing to put up with some trouble finding parking as part of the experience.
I'd like to see the City get out front of the issue by further improving public transit, extending hours for the Green DASH for instance, so to people know that when the visit (or live) downtown, they can park once (or not at all) and get around without their car, rather than building more garages and parking lots.
Personally, I definitely notice them more in Portland than in Manchester, and hardly at all in Burlington. I'm not sure that means there is more homelessness in Portland, though. In Manchester, Veterans Park serves as the major concentration of homeless people. It's a beautiful park and used for many festivals, but I've never been in it otherwise. I'm assuming the homelessness there dissuades visitors and development around it, but I also see plenty of non-homeless enjoying it. The same is true, on a smaller scale, of Victory Park outside the main library. In Portland, on the other hand, there are far fewer big parks right downtown, so it seems like the homeless there tend to concentrate in Monument Square, where they are inevitably right outside shops and restaurants, so it might just be that they are more visible there.
