"The bottom line is, we have enough parking, but it's hidden or badly managed," said Cara Finn, who owns The Grapevine on Lincoln Avenue and serves as president of the Willow Glen Business and Professional Association.

A Feb. 20 meeting on the parking issue included Finn and other Lincoln Avenue property and business owners and staff from San Jose District 6 City Council member Ken Yeager's office. The meeting was officiated by Nanci Klein, spokeswoman for the city's office of economic development.

Finn and Nanci Klein believe that parking problems in downtown Willow Glen would be reduced if property owners allowed their parking lots to be used not only by their customers but also those patronizing other Lincoln Avenue businesses. Currently many Lincoln Avenue parking lots designate spots for customers of a particular shop or restaurant.

Forcing customers to shop only near where they parked isn't the way to go, Finn said.

"Not allowing customers to park someplace and go walking along Lincoln Avenue is bad for business," Finn said. "We need to look at parking more broad-mindedly; we all share customers."

The parking spot allotment situation is especially noticeable at the Garden Theatre Plaza, where a one-way entrance has tire-puncturing spikes to prevent unlawful entry into an adjacent parking lot. The plaza's property owner even hired a parking lot attendant to keep non-plaza customers from parking in the plaza's reserved spaces.

In response to the parking problem, some merchants have proposed restriping certain parking spaces, improving signage that directs motorists to parking and building a parking garage.

"A garage would be bad," said Dan Wood, who lives on Palm Street. He usually either walks or takes the bus to Lincoln Avenue. "I would think the community would deteriorate rather than improve" with a parking garage. A parking garage might invite even more traffic, he said.

Discussions about a Lincoln Avenue garage have typically ended as soon as they're brought up, since the cost of having one is seemingly insurmountable. Finn said that not only would it be too expensive to plan and build but maintaining a single parking spot in a garage costs hundreds of dollars more than maintaining a parking lot space.

Some Lincoln Avenue pedestrians say they have noticed that parking isn't as bad currently as it was two years ago, before the recession began.

"I think it used to be worse when the economy was better," said 10-year Willow Glen resident Michael Saunders, who visits Lincoln Avenue several times a week.

Finn said that given the slow economy, now is the ideal time to get property owners to rethink how they manage their parking lots.

"You don't get customers' attention when things are going well," Finn said. "I don't mean to sound like an alarmist, but success hides a lot of bad business decisions."

Willow Glen Books owner Cathy Adkins, who is also the association's vice president, said that as a business owner she is "passionate about changing people's minds about parking."

"I don't see the customers who come into my store as 'my' customers," she said. "We all share customers." She said that many of her customers visit her store before or after going to a nearby restaurant like Vin Santo or Taiwan Restaurant. However, some restaurants have reserved parking for a set amount of time.

Sharing parking may sound well and good but it could be a hard sell, especially to merchants located in the Garden Theatre Plaza.

Tom Smith has worked in the plaza for eight years with The Diabetes Society, and not a week goes by that he doesn't have problems finding a place to park near his office.

"It got pretty bad until about last fall," Smith said. "At one point the society seriously considered moving to another location."

Across the street, at the corner of Lincoln and Willow, parking is limited for Willow Street Wood-Fired Pizza and the Willow Glen Frozen Yogurt Company.

"It's definitely a problem," said yogurt shop owner Jeff Mullen, "but people are generally nice about it." He said patrons stay, enjoy their yogurt and drive away rather than leaving the cars to shop elsewhere.

"But I get asked constantly about the limited parking, and I don't know what to tell people," Mullen said.

Lincoln Avenue has undergone two studies that addressed parking and traffic, but apparently no one knows exactly what to do about the issue. As a representative of the business association Adkins recently attended a "technical advisory committee" meeting with the city. She said that consultants are preparing a questionnaire to distribute to business owners and property owners about their concerns regarding parking and on sharing parking spaces.

"We really want the parking issue to be driven from the property owners' perspective," Klein said. "I think it's really positive, and hopefully we can make this work out."