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An article in today’s Dispatch is reporting that some city officials are considering a 50% rate hike to parking meters throughout Downtown, the Short North, the Arena District, German Village and other urban neighborhoods. The increase is estimated to bring in an additional $1.5 million in revenue. This news comes just three weeks after parking meter restrictions were lifted in order to make Downtown on-street parking more convenient for businesses.
You can read the full Dispatch article here.
@Jungaroo –
“Columbus, like most other municipalities, have parking policies that are connected to raising revenue rather than managing demand and traffic.”
Well said. That pretty much sums up my opposition of the current proposal.
@joev
I’m not sure hotels (or convention centers) actually count as infrastructure, but I get your point. I’m just really hesitant to publicly fund things that don’t or shouldn’t ordinarily need to be publicly funded (you can add the downtown parking garages to that list).
To me, this raises the question of where we draw the line to determine what local government should fund/build to attract conventions. Is it just the convention center? How about parking lots? Streetcars? Free airport to downtown buses? Hotels? Restaurants? Downtown shopping malls? Stadiums and arenas? Casinos? Roller coasters?
I’d rather government just stay out of most of it. Frankly, I’m not even sure we need a convention center. TRB is the biggest convention I’ve been to (10,000 people) and it’s in three private hotels located within walking distance of each other. I’d rather have kept Union Station.
@Jon, agreed to an extent, but half of his point supports the proposal. The meters need to be more expensive and run later for nights. I would argue they are perfect during the day. There are always one or two spaces available but mostly filled. Still, a good percentage of the meters during the day are filled by employees of the neighborhood and that needs to stop. I wish it were as easy as a campaign reminding all of the businesses that we are hurting ourselves by taking those spaces, but I doubt it would be effective.
We need a garage like the 3rd St. Promenade in LA. Free for 2 hours, pay if you’re there more than that, or just a validation system. I would gladly pay my share of that.
Change the meter systems.
Tech based forced turnover
The first quarter gives 30 minutes, each additional quarter: 5 minutes, dime: 2 minutes, nickel: 1 minute. Resets when the car leaves the spot (use a magnetic loop sensor to determine movement, similar to traffic signal sensors, not very high tech nor very expensive).
Or work with the division of traffic to find a quick way to appeal tickets with a receipt from nearby business during the same time similar to parking validation.
If you are concerned with being unable to find cheap parking for extended periods of time and are unwilling to walk a few blocks, then you are wrong. We have plenty of parking capacity for our current business demands, but people have to be willing to walk.
so now when you put 2 dollars in a meter on gay street you only get 2.5 minutes instead of 5? fantastic!
what i really want to know, is when someone is going to do something about the fact that for each dollar you put in a parking meter, it only gives you credit for 50 cents. its a pretty good scam they have going on there. they get to steal 50 or 75 cents from everyone who parks at a meter… im sure that adds up quite nicely.
captain janks Says: what i really want to know, is when someone is going to do something about the fact that for each dollar you put in a parking meter, it only gives you credit for 50 cents.
If you park at a faulty meter, report it. I recently got a ticket for an expired meter on Long Street where I was parked for 30 minutes and had put in enough change for an hour. I came back early to find that the meter was flashing “0:00″ and I had a ticket written 10 minues prior. I called and reported it, and a week later I got a letter stating that the meter was inspected and repaired and my ticket was dropped.
@Josh – As someone who is an observant stroller of High street all day long I think the issue of employees taking up all the metered parking is grossly overstated. Especially during the day.
A large percentage of businesses are owner/ operator staffed by one or two people. Most of whom are local and don’t need to drive. Of the restaurants with a larger percentage of staff that do commute it still doesn’t make much of a dent in metered parking.
On parking meter turnover in the Short North during the day, turning over meters doesn’t appear to be a problem. Even in the Macs lot and along Park street where a quarter still buys a decent amount of time on the meter.
The issue of metered parking during the day in the Short North is more of a cultural issue than a problem of no meters being available to park at. They’re plenty. People just don’t want to walk two or three minutes down the street. Most of that is laziness, some of it is people are afraid of letting their car out of their sight because they’re being shaken down by bums and some of it is just plain confusion, which the rate increase with no improved parking meters will perpetuate.
That confusion will lead to more people bad mouthing downtown when they get the inevitable tickets and it will destroy more economic value downtown than it creates.
“I can park at Easton for free. Why would I come downtown to eat and shop?” – I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard that remark from suburbanites.
^The Easton comment reminds me, why is it only a few select areas like Downtown and the Short North where motorists are going to be doubly punished for patronizing our urban core, but the city is doing nothing to charge for parking in other parts of Columbus like the strip malls, Easton, Polaris, etc? As much of a proponent I am for car alternatives, this is just too much and will cause more suburbanites to say the above quote. Reminds me of when some people Downtown were outraged that the meters on Gay were the same price as in NYC. The city should have learned their lesson by now with the all of the new developments on Gay St; an urban street attracts urban businesses while a suburban street repels them (see the closings on Main St. which could have been Gay St. part 2, but the city let entrepreneurs on Main suffer. That going to change any time soon Mike?). More Gay St. replicas would increase demand for parking meaning more people would be using more meters, no increase needed.
This move is actually very pro-sprawl when you think about it since motorists, the majority, will be even more inclined to make use of free parking out in the burbs, which they already do. The city needs to charge for parking whether it’s the SN or a parking lot on Sawmill (they already have meters in parking lots across from OSU). For the latter, installing meters at every space in a parking lot could be done, but I’m sure there’s a way to have parking charges added and separated from purchases made. Why should Columbus suburbanites continue to not only have no meters to pay for, let alone worry about a 50% increase as along as they stay in the burbs and are rewarded for it? This increase would be so very unnecessary if everyone had to shell out their part for parking their car.
Also, why is German Village listed? When I had a car, I didn’t pay for parking on 3rd, Whittier, or Mohawk and I can’t think of anyplace that has meters here. And when they say “other urban neighborhoods”, don’t they just mean some neighborhoods around OSU and the Brewery District? KL, OTE, Fton, Hilltop, Clintonville, etc they all have “free” on-street parking.
That’s a really good question Columbusite. Why aren’t there more meters at those places? They are in Columbus, yes?
I believe that most of the “streets” through Easton are private property, not public property. Same thing with the parking lots at Polaris or Tuttle or Walmart or anywhere else. I don’t believe the City of Columbus has any authority to install meters in the areas that Columbusite is talking about.
I honestly don’t think I’ve ever paid for a meter on Gay St. Every time I go to Tip Top they are already turned off for the night. I would think most of the audience for Tip Top, Due Amici, Dirty Franks and other establishments get most, if not all, of the lunch crowd from customers who have already parked for the day. Meanwhile, when night time comes around the meters are already off. No problem there for meter increases.
I would however, be very upset if they decided to expand meter hours to 9 or 10pm. I think it would really hurt all of the business. Parking isn’t much of a problem and if you have an issue walking two or three blocks perhaps you should just order in for the night :)
From this article: ‘Slow Market’ For Central Ohio Retail, Office Space
“Downtown is suffering worse than I’ve seen it suffer,“ said Mike Simpson, an agent with Ohio Equities. “It’s so difficult to pull new tenants downtown because of the parking. It costs money and it’s not as convenient as suburban parking.“
Granted, office parking (lots/garages) and retail parking (includes meters) are two different things, but either way, the hurting is already there.
@jon I’ll try and dig up the parking study that was done a few years ago, but it claimed a pretty high percentage of the parking was being taken up by workers. I also see owners that feed meters all day, rather than park a block away.
I still say the city dropped the ball as far as providing a foundation for attracting businesses and developers in other parts of Downtown like they did on Gay. They could still transform a few streets Downtown with the most potential, like Main which already has a cluster of retail spots, but since they didn’t act earlier they’re going to have to wait to plan it, allocate funding, and wait for more entrepreneurs and developers to bite after completed. We do have the money, but it’s a question of priorities.
25 cents for 15 minutes for lunch at Dirty Franks yesterday. From the number of people in Dirty Franks, I would say that is the only reason that people were parked on 4th street in the middle of the day on a Saturday. I would guess that the same is probably true of Tip Top and Gay Street. They need to turn the meters off on weekends, not raise the rates.
Or lower rates on weekends for an incentive while still making some revenue.
Well, I got screwed in the Arena District tonight. We went to dinner at 6pm. Silly us, we thought that the meters were no longer enforced after 6pm. WRONG! After we got back from dinner at Teds, we found a $25 ticket on my windshield.
Dinner was tasty, but we forgot our take-home boxes too. Grrrrr. As far as Teds is concerned, “Once is happenstance; twice is coincidence; three times is enemy action.” Two bad things happened; I am not going to take the risk of a third bad thing. Sorry Teds….I’ll be getting my steak fix someplace else.
And sorry Arena District…I will no longer go to any event over there unless I get comp’ed parking or the meters are not enforced. I will take my business someplace where they are friendly to me….like Easton or Polaris.
No offense but aren’t the meters usually marked with enforcement hours? I always make sure to check prior to walking off. If there was no markings you could probably fight it.
In the AD, I think all of the garages are $3-at least on weekends.
Yeah, I guess if you’re wont to complain about getting a ticket that you couldn’t be bothered to have prevented, then the Arena District is not the place for you. There’s always the Ted’s off Sawmill in Dublin, but there’s nothing there that will prevent you from forgetting your take-home boxes.
Really disappointed to hear that there was secret “public” meeting held today and that this is going into effect with zero community input. Rate hikes take effect on November 30th.