Downtown Parking

No More Parking Meters?  Hooray?  Maybe Not?

Okay, the Town removed the parking meters to encourage more people to park easily downtown to shop.  The meters provided a small amount of revenue from quarters that were collected.  There could have been more revenue collected if the police department agressively enforced the violators.  Once again I saw the comparision to Blacksburg where their town has a aparking enforcement officer that generates a lot of revenue each year by wrting parking tickets to meter violators.  Our town police did not agressively enforce the parking meters.

So, we removed the meters to allow easy parking for shopping but now all the parking spaces are filled up with courthouse business parkers.  There is a parking lot behind the jail but it is often too full and people end up parking in all the downtown spaces for hours at a time.  There is also a lower parking lot behind the jail that is mostly empty all the time but courthouse customers dont like to park so far away and have to walk.

Are our police officers able to do anything about the long term parkers in the downtown spaces?  No, because the town didnt think of putting up limited parking signs such as "One Hour," "Two Hour," "No Courthouse Parking," etc. signs.  Everyday I see lawyers & defendants parking their vehicles across the street from the courthouse in the old meter spaces.  I wouldnt be able to shop at the antique store because there arent any spaces available most of the time on busy courthouse days.

I have recently written letters to the judges and the town manager requesting that they instruct courthouse employees, lawyers, and other regular customers to the clerk's offices's to park in the lower parking lot behind the jail on First Street.   

I hope that signs are posted soon and the police department begins aggressively enforcing the parking limit signs to bring back in a little revenue and to open up spaces for downtown shoppers as planned.