In an April 9 front page Mirror article about downtown Altoona parking, a representative of Mountain View Eye Associates was quoted as saying, “The biggest thing anyone says is it really sucks to park (in the center city area).”

Some people might disagree with the tone of that quote, but it must be acknowledged how challenging and frustrating parking has become in the downtown for many other people — and a turn-off to coming back unless absolutely necessary.

Still, Altoona is not alone. Gone are the days when cities of Altoona’s size had a number of privately owned parking lots in their core areas, because of the numerous stores and other businesses that populated their business districts.

For many, if not most, smaller metropolitan areas the size of Altoona, both across Pennsylvania and in other states, businesses’ exodus to the suburbs — like to Logan Township here — in the late 1960s and 1970s changed, radically, downtown parking space needs and policies governing those spaces available.

Parking garages became the new “in” thing in many downtowns’ new service environments, and that parking option became more and more popular and convenient.

Meanwhile, in bigger metropolitan areas like Pittsburgh, some privately owned parking lots remain alive and well, even today, among the available parking garages, although with high fees that many people consider prohibitive.

Altoona never was “big” on the parking garage scene, although for decades the William F. Gable Co. department store garage was a great asset — until time and deterioration inflicted their toll on that facility.

Similar scenarios are in play in many other cities now that their garages are decades old.

But back to Altoona:

The April 9 Mirror article mentioned a meeting involving “stakeholders” and the city’s newly hired management company, SP Plus. The meeting’s purposes were listed as discussing stakeholder concerns and potential changes in rules governing how parking is — and will be — dealt with in the central business district.

“One of the main reasons for hiring SP Plus to manage parking in the rapidly developing downtown,” the article said, “is to discourage employees, college students and others from parking for extended hours in premium street and lot spaces that businesses and medical practices would like to reserve for their customers and patients.”

As the article went on to say, there are a number of potential and already very real scenarios that will make numerous parking policies difficult to implement and enforce — and multiply frustration for those people needing a downtown space for health or other reasons when they come downtown.

For the local parking authority and SP Plus, going forward, “strategies” and “foresight” will be important words in the decision-making process. The central consideration of that is — and will be — how to mold their responsibilities and ideas into the ongoing downtown renaissance most effectively and efficiently, so people will not frown about coming downtown.

Other entities must be able to “feed” on the good ideas and decisions that the authority and SP Plus will have the opportunity to bring about.

It seems safe to conclude that possibilities still exist that remain to be identified and pursued, despite the city’s compact nature.

Some of the potential difficulties mentioned in the April 9 article are not problems at all in some places and should not be ruled out here.

As with the parking mission as a whole, a better mindset might be all that is needed to fit correctly all of the “puzzle pieces” together, rather than succumb to doubt and misinformation.