Some of you might not realize it, but over 1,000 downtown parking meters are now accepting the Parking Meter Smart Card. If you work, live or visit downtown often, it’s great just to get one of these cards and keep in your wallet or purse for those instances when you need to park at a parking meter.

The cards are simple to use, just purchase one for $5, plus the amount placed on the card and anytime you need to use a parking meter, you insert the card; buy time on meter, and when you are done, place your card back in the meter and any unused time is refunded back to the card.

You can get a card at any of the following three locations downtown:

• 3rd & Court Parking Garage Office
• 9th & Locust Parking Garage Office
• City Hall Lobby @ 400 Robert D. Ray Drive

Posted under Living Downtown
Tags: Parking

Lately there has been lots of talk about parking in the news as studies have cities rethinking the downtown parking dilema. What issue? Does more parking available make more people want to be downtown or does less parking make downtown more livable? It is said that parking is about more than drivers’ convenience; it can profoundly affect the look and feel of a city.

Nearly all U.S. cities have requirements for off-street parking. Whenever anything a new office building or condo building is built, a minimum number of parking spaces must be included. Some cities are now considering scrapping those requirements as part of a growing national trend. So, you ask why the change of mind? There is new thinking that offering the freedom to forgo parking will lead to a denser, more walkable, downtown area. Others say that making parking more scarce will only make a city less hospitable, especially for commuters.

Parking requirements — known to planners as “parking minimums” — have been around since the 1950s. The theory is that if buildings don’t provide their own parking, too many drivers will try to park on neighborhood streets. In practice, critics say, the requirements create an excess supply of parking, making it artificially cheap. That, the argument goes, encourages unnecessary driving and makes congestion worse. Those standards also encourage developers to pave unsightly surface lots or build new parking structures instead of inviting storefronts.

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Posted under Living Downtown
Tags: Parking