St. Paul's Grand Avenue too popular for its own good

Perhaps the judgment of Solomon is warranted in the dispute between St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman and area residents over installing parking meters along Grand Avenue in St. Paul.

The city wants the revenue and, ostensibly, more turnover traffic to generate activity. Opponents fear a loss of traffic and local revenue if said meters are installed.

Makes you think. Don't you just revel in Paul Newman's opening appearance in the movie "Cool Hand Luke" — slicing a parking meter with a pipe cutter? I think an equally drastic response might be needed in the Grand Avenue parking meter brouhaha.

I live in the Dayton's Bluff neighborhood of St. Paul, 2 or 3 miles east of Grand Avenue, and about $200,000 or $300,000 less in typical assessed property value. But I first lived at Grand and Lexington avenues, when there was a gas station at the intersection, and later, on Portland Avenue near the William Mitchell School of Law, just a bagel smell away from Grand.

Even then, when the Green Mill, La Cucaracha, the Lexington and the Grandview Theatre were about the only showcase destinations, traffic was a pain. I was perturbed — and I'm sure current residents are — that we had to pay to get a permit to park on our own street.

The only constant was the Grandview Theatre. They poured the butter on the popcorn and continue to do so.

I can't imagine what the residents north and south of Grand have to endure today. Then again, it is part of the price of a very nice neighborhood.

That's unlikely.

As are high-rise parking ramps.

The only solution is to piss off everyone.

"Nicollet Mall" it. Yes, close Grand Avenue entirely to car traffic. Allow maybe a bus or two. Grand has the residential density to ensure that the closed venue would always be busy, vibrant and commercially viable.

I picture sidewalk seating from Dale west to Fairview, with cappuccinos at one end and buttery popcorn on the other. Grand Old Days? How about Grand Old Month! Think big! Former St. Paul Mayor Randy Kelly envisioned joining downtown St. Paul with the State Capitol by bridging the space over Interstate 94 with greenways. Now that was big thinking!

The ultimate problem is that St. Paul has become too fashionable. The Grand Avenue-Selby Avenue reimagination has hampered any east-west trip. Damn Lowertown has so many eateries and bars that people won't stay in Minneapolis. And don't get me started about the Xcel Center and the Wild, or CHS Field and the Saints, or the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra. All that notoriety has ruined the roll-up-the-sidewalks-after-6 placidity I've come to expect.

With all of his other accomplishments, I thought Mayor Coleman might have imagined something more grand for Grand Avenue. He could doubly top Paul Newman's "Cool Hand Luke," not by toppling parking meters — or, in this case, installing them — but by innovating as he has done before.

As Luke's prison warden said: "What we've got here is failure to communicate."