Last week we talked about art’s role in our belief systems. The week before, the subject was art and national culture. This week, we’re going to address ... parking.

Because you can’t enjoy the performing arts if you can’t get to the theater.

If you’ve ever attended the Phoenix Symphony, Arizona Opera, or Arizona Theatre Company in their downtown Phoenix venues when the Suns have had a game going, you know what I’m talking about.

Four parking garages serve the immediate area of Phoenix Symphony Hall and Herberger Theater, and all of them have drawbacks. The one run by Chase Bank is most central, but good luck getting out after the show, that is, if you can get in before it. Arrive in time–say, half an hour to 45 minutes before a performance–and you’ll probably find a space. But plan on adding another 30 to 40 minutes to your evening after the show gets out, thanks to slow progress down the ramps and past the pay booths.

You could try surface parking, but it’s iffy at best, and made even worse now with the way downtown Phoenix has been torn up for the installation of light rail. Friends of mine who never miss a concert of the Phoenix Symphony nearly missed one recently when they unexpectedly encountered a barricade where once there had been a street with plenty of street parking. They traced a route to the nearest parking garage, found one of the last parking spots in it (the Suns were busy beating whatever team they beat that night) and managed to plop down into their seats, half exhausted, exactly as the music was beginning. It’s not the ideal circumstances for enjoying great symphonic music.

Then there’s Gammage Auditorium in Tempe. ASU Gammage is indispensable for fans of touring theater. This week, for example, brings the legendary Chita Rivera in a show that surveys her career and the history of musical theater that coincided with her appearances on Broadway in such shows as “West Side Story,” “Bye Bye Birdie,” “Chicago,” “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” “Sweet Charity” and “Nine.” “Chita Rivera: The Dancer’s Life” comes straight to us from Broadway, courtesy the series at Gammage.

If you go to any of the remaining performances (through Sunday, March 18), may I suggest you arrive early and dine at some of the great restaurants on Mill Avenue? No, I’m not shilling for the Tempe Chamber of Commerce, I’m kvetching about the lack of parking at Gammage. There’s no garage adjacent to the famous, wedding‑cake like theater, just surface parking–and not nearly enough of it. Arrive late–say, half an hour before curtain–and you’ll be directed to a garage several blocks away and have to walk back to the theater. You might as well show up early, park your car along Mill (there’s easier ingress‑egress from there), dine, and see the show without the last‑minute stress.

I have a modest proposal for the downtown Phoenix arts groups, that would solve everything. It doesn’t involve building more garages. It requires reversing how things are done.

Right now, we travel to the art. Think how things would improve if the art traveled to us.

Arizona Opera and Arizona Theater Company (ATC) already do this by serving two cities: Phoenix and Tucson. (ATC does a partial in Mesa, as well.) It would be challenging, but not impossible, to coordinate productions to fit the size of the many wonderful venues that have opened up around the Valley in the last several years. This would be easiest for the Phoenix Symphony, since an orchestra tours without the theatrical burdens of sets, etc.

In the North Valley, the Phoenix Symphony just closed Arizona Musicfest March 4 with a performance at Pinnacle Presbyterian Church, surely one of the Valley’s finest acoustic environments and infinitely more welcoming than Phoenix Symphony Hall. Why couldn’t the symphony arrange a full season that toured all its major concerts around the Valley, with stops at Pinnacle, Mesa Arts Center, Peoria (that city has just built a handsome new arts complex) and maybe Queen Creek, which also has a facility?

The theater is more of a challenge, but as ATC has proven with its Phoenix‑Tucson‑Mesa productions, it’s quite doable. Opera, though generally larger in theatrical scale, could certainly tour the Valley with smaller productions. The biggest challenge would come with dance. Not just any floor will do for dancing. But portable dance floors exist.

We’re all getting used to experiencing the arts in the comfort of our homes, with the incredible availability of theater, concerts, operas and dance on DVD and via the Internet. It won’t be long before a whole generation of people simply refuses to grapple with the frustrations of driving and parking and driving back home again. Performing arts groups could do some of the work for us by shortening our travel time and coming to venues in our neighborhoods, where parking the car is not a competitive sport.