Columbusite

While this will give many people a negative knee-jerk reaction there are instances where this would be a good thing, such as ensuring a few open spaces at all times when the meters are active. However, the city should look at alternatives before going down such an unimaginative, vanilla approach to handling parking in popular places like the Short North and a few pockets Downtown. There are a good number of streets, particularly in the southern half of Downtown, where meters generate little revenue and a raise in price wouldn’t make sense. I’ve never seen Rich St. with many cars using the meters during the weelday and that’s when Downtown’s population is at it’s peak.

The city needs to take a page from Dr. Shoup and should be using a good portion of revenue generated from any given street to go back into maintaining and improving that same street. Right now, many urban strips have free parking where the city could be generating revenue and use that money to improve these business districts such as: W. Broad in Franklinton and Highland West, Long St. and Mt. Vernon in King-Lincoln, Parsons Ave. from OTE down to Reeb-Hosack, E. Main along Olde Towne East and Franklin Park, E. 5th Ave. in East Columbus, etc. It seems counter-intuitive, but if the revenue generated directly goes back into investing in improvements on the streets of these business districts, then we will see noticeable, visible improvements. These are much needed to help address the image problem that these places currently face and would result in making these places more attractive to set up shop. It’s not like free parking has done anything to draw several visitors to those streets in the long time it has existed. For business districts that are already having some level of success like 3rd st in German Village or N. High St. in Clintonville, meter-generated revenue could pay for some of the projects that these neighborhoods are looking at such as street-scape improvements and increased accessibility for pedestrians, etc.

This is the crux of the matter and one where the city is erring. The city is justifying the increase by saying that a new hotel being built in the general vicinity of the streets where a raise is being proposed is going to benefit all of these streets. The problem here, aside from the government backing a hotel, which is also a concern raised on X-ing Columbus, is that the money is not going back directly to the streets where revenue was generated as it must. That is, if the city wants more vibrant business districts and for businesses to support the increase and/or installation of new meters.

Currently, Friday and Saturday nights see traffic in the Short North crawling at near walking speed. It’s not uncommon for a pedestrian to walk past the same vehicle at each light, especially on Gallery Hop. I’ve done that a number of times. Spots here are free after 6:00PM  and many vehicles are circling around looking for a spot and contributing to traffic. Extending meter hours here makes a good deal of sense to ensure there are spots available for easier parking for visitors. One of the biggest complaints is that the Short North has a parking problem and this is likely it; cars are able to sit for long periods of time for free when there is high demand for parking while several vehicles aren’t able to find a spot for quite some time.

In a few places where the 50% increase would be necessary to ensure a handful of open spaces, this increase will work. However, it does nothing to address places that have no meters but could generate revenue, meters that are turned off at peak times on weekend nights, and already under-performing meters on mostly empty streets. Nor does it confront the issue of streets that generate revenue from meters not seeing that money go back into maintenance and improvements of those same streets. All of these matters need to be addressed for parking meter policies that work, receive support from businesses along these streets, and even assist in revitalization of underutilized urban business districts.