Saturday, February 25, 2012

Wow, Youngstown having troubles with downtown free parking. Installing Meters



Who knew poor, depressed Youngstown is now having some pretty big parking problems. More than a thousand people now work downtown with more nearby at YSU. An emerging retail revival is causing big problems for store owners as parking for potential customers is taken by downtown employees, exploiting the two hour free street parking by moving their cars around every two hours.

The city plans to install meters. Good for them!

2 comments:

Lj Swiech said...

Parking meters do very well to keep me out of Pittsburgh. I was attending OSHER classes at CMU until they raised the parking rates. I do not attend any events downtown, Oakland when I can work around the parking situation. I am glad that some of the neighborhood events are still available to me. One may defend pay to park but when you are on a limited income it can be a deciding factor. Public transportation here, for me, is a joke.

John Morris said...

Yes, it is a joke, but offering free or low cost parking in places with available transit only ads to the problem.

First of all, it takes up land, better used for housing, offices and other amenities that might get more people to live in the city.

Remember also, that the problem in Youngstown-is street spaces taken up by local employees seeking free parking.

High tech metering rations the spaces during peak hours to the people who value them the most, like local shoppers instead of just those lucky enough to have grabbed a space.