Over the years the City Council has:
Installed coin meters, then pulled them out.
Tried free parking zones, then abandoned them.
Declared their intention to build a parking garage, then backed away.
Most recently the council has voted to borrow three quarters of a million dollars to install parking pay stations that have irritated and confused downtown patrons and angered business owners.
Why can’t city officials pick a parking path and stick to it? The stops and starts, the indecision and inconsistency paint a picture of a leaderless council and administrative team that simply can’t get their act together.
We really had hoped that the pay stations would be the final chapter in the downtown parking saga that has now stretched on for decades. We lost track of the number of parking studies.
The problem with the old meters was downtown employees were chain parking. They would feed the meters and move their cars throughout the day, so they could park close to their job. Unfortunately, employees took up most of the metered parking stalls. Patrons looking for a place to park drove around city blocks repeatedly hoping to spot a vacancy. Some shoppers simply gave up and drove to a mall or big box store where parking is free.
That’s not what downtown business owners, restaurant and entertainment venues want.
The pay stations, coupled with a city lot designated for use by downtown employees was supposed to be the long-sought solution. We had high hopes for success.
And while employees have been using the city lot, and there are far more empty stalls now, merchants and downtown patrons have found a lot to dislike about the pay stations which began charging customers $1 an hour in July in the previously free, 90-minute parking zone in the heart of the city.
Patrons complained that the stations were hard to use. They don’t accept pocket change. Patrons say they have been ticketed while simply walking from their vehicle to the pay station, getting their receipt and walking back to put it in the windshield of their car.
Patrons have said the pay stations have malfunctioned, are hard to spot and the City Council had to pass a no-panhandling ordinance to keep beggars from soliciting people as they purchased their parking pass.
“The operations of our machines still don’t meet our service expectations,” said Steve Friddle, community services manager for the city.
Councilwoman Jeannine Roe said she has gotten emails from several business owners who have said their revenue dipped as much as 20 percent after the pay stations were installed.
Deb Moody, owner of State of the Arts gallery on Washington Street has admitted she is struggling to keep the doors of her business open. She recently held a save-our-gallery sale in hopes of surviving.
Moody said part of the struggle is coping with the new parking stations. “I have at least one person in here every day who complains about them,” she said. “If the city had just used regular parking meters, I don’t think the backlash would’ve been as great.”
Faced with the mounting complaints about the pay stations, the city staff has put together a plan of action before the parking strategy is reviewed again in the first quarter of 2012.
The changes in the works include:
• Relocating at least 10 little-used pay stations to high-use areas and replacing the little-used stations with coin meters.
• Reducing/simplifying electronic instructions on pay stations this month to make them less confusing.
• Adding “pay here” signs on the green machines next month in hopes of making the pay stations more visible.
Council members have gone along with the planned changes, but are clearly concerned about the complaints of shoppers and merchants.
Mayor Doug Mah is suggesting free-parking Fridays.
Councilman Stephen Buxbaum proposed that people could use their receipts from shopping downtown as validation for parking.
Councilwoman Roe, however, is ready to pull the plug. “You realize, I hate those stations,” she said. “I just hate ’em.” Roe wants the pay stations removed.
Great! Then what? Do city officials really want to scrap the debt-ridden pay stations and come up with yet another parking strategy? Surely there must be a way to make the unpopular pay stations work long term. The city must find a parking strategy and stick to it.
