For the record, I hate the damn parking meters and yes, I think they do hold back street level retail and restaurant activity, especially for someone who needed to put time in the office then retire to a pub or restaurant after hours. Yeah I know they don't collect after hours but if I'm going to have to be fined for going to my 'branch,' office downtown for this routine, then I'm better off in Bay Meadows. Dropping a few quarters isn't such a big deal, $4-5 per day, but over a 20 day month that's a $100 dollar fine for going downtown. Can I avoid that condition at Town Center? Flagler Center? Avenues? Bay Meadows? Deerwood? Orange Park? Mandarin? then why the hell open my boutique in downtown? Now guess what? I don't pay a damn thing to park at any meter in Florida, 100% disabled veterans are exempt, but I still think if we hadn't gone this route, we might have salvaged some of that old downtown mojo that was driven off, here and everywhere else. Just Saying.'
I still think a revenue recovery fee of some sort applied to longer term parking coupled with transit passes for those employees, would allow us to kill two birds with one stone. Rip out the meters, provide rides, and fill seats, whilst lessening the traffic burden. Parking enforcement would NOT GO AWAY, we would simply set up timed parking spaces and enforce it like many other cities do around the country that offer free parking. Parking meters were a great revenue idea when everything happened in downtowns across the land, but as that trend started to shift, they have cost us more in empty lots, vacant storefronts and mall exodus then they ever made. Someone should have gotten a clue around 1962 and yanked them out.
Sometimes I miss the activism of 1969! Just imagine what a citizen protest with 15-20 hummers, jeeps and suburbans could do a 2-3 am some morning by taking them all out! LOL! Free 6 pack to anyone who's game...
