Bend officials should think long and hard before they seriously consider imposing paid parking in the downtown district. Given the amount of off-street free parking available for customers of many outlying merchants, parking fees downtown could undo a yearslong effort to keep the area vital.

Some changes have been successful. Creation of an economic improvement district made money available to gussy up the neighborhood, and that money has been put to some good use. The Downtown Bend Business Association, created in the early 1980s, does everything from shoveling snow to hanging flower baskets in the summer, in addition to its efforts to keep building occupancy at 95 percent.

The improvements didn’t happen overnight, and some didn’t happen at all.

In the 1970s the city looked seriously at creating a pedestrian mall downtown similar to one in Eugene that opened in 1971. Such malls were all the rage back then, and at least 200 of them were created around the country. But, as Eugene merchants quickly learned, removing parking from downtown streets was a business killer, so much so that by 2005 only about two dozen pedestrian malls remained nationwide. Luckily for Bend, work on our own pedestrian mall was scrapped while still in the planning stage.

Today, shoppers may park free for two hours on downtown streets and for three hours in the city’s parking structure. That’s paid off for downtown merchants: The area is thriving. Why on earth would the city choose to tamper with a winning formula?

Perhaps officials take for granted that downtown will be a success. No one denies Bend needs money for a slew of road projects. It shouldn’t go about targeting merchants with things like paid parking to get it.