The city brought in a consultant. There was a task force — suits — that paid careful attention to his powerpoints. Bottom line: City Administration wants to jack up the on-street meter rates to (for starters) $1 an hour, meter every spot & push cars into the half-empty parking decks. Why? People come downtown once a year for lunch/meetings, they don’t see any on-street parking, so they think there isn’t any parking available … and they never come back. They don’t see any on-street parking spaces because, @ 2 hrs. for $0.50, or in many places 2 hrs. for $0.00, downtown workers take ’em and play musical cars all day. On top of which, there’s the phony handicapped parking problem.
Meanwhile, consultant says, there is more than enough parking available downtown.
Next move: City Council.
A new blog reports on the presentation to the City Council yesterday. (but C. — fix that headline!) (Update: It’s fixed.)
(h/t NewRaleigh.com)
