The more I look into the City's efforts to charge people to park at Washington Park, the more interesting it gets. (Background: the City of Portland owns Washington Park and leases the Oregon Zoo and the Zoo parking lot to Metro, which operates the Zoo and the parking lot.)
Two days ago I'd posted a snippet from the proposed agreement between the City and Metro, which says that in 1997 Metro borrowed $4,940,000 to help out with the Zoo light rail station, that Metro expected to repay the $4,940,000 with revenues from the Zoo parking lot, and that Metro hasn't repaid the debt yet. My own experience with the Zoo parking lot is that no one seems to be charging for using it, although it has booths and gates set up.
Later that day Rick commented that the Zoo does charge for parking, and folds it into the ticket price for admission. So if Metro has been collecting for parking by surcharging Zoo admission tickets, and if Metro hasn't been using the parking fees to repay the $5 million it borrowed, what has Metro done with the money it did collect? Inquiring minds are curious.