City looks at higher fee, later hours for parking meters
This is what you get when there are COMMIES running city hall..They don't have a clever idea in their brain to BRING business downtown....only to keep TAXING and more FEES.
by James Mayer, The Oregonian
Monday February 23, 2009, 5:38 PM
You may have to start reaching for more change to plug Portland's parking machines -- the city is looking at charging another 25 cents an hour and extending the meter hours to 9 p.m.
"Of course they are," said Leah Reynolds as she ponied up at one of the city's solar-powered meters downtown Monday afternoon. Reynolds works as a waitress in the Pearl District and has to play parking-meter roulette all day.
"With all the money they make, they don't need to be charging more," she said.
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Community budget forum: 6 to 8:30 p.m. today at the Multnomah Arts Center, 7688 S.W. Capital Highway
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The proposal from the Portland Transportation Bureau calls for charging $1.50 an hour for street meters to bring in an extra $2.2 million. The bureau also wants to push back the 7 p.m. meter time by two hours to make another $1.7 million and boost various rates at city-owned garages to earn $1.5 million more.
The city would use the new money for paving projects on busy streets such as 39th Avenue and Southeast Hawthorne Street.
Portland last increased parking rates and hours in 2006.
Parking is big business for the city and it's one of the few sources of income that has been fairly stable. Portland expects to rake in $21.3 million this fiscal year from all the city's parking operations. That's about a quarter of the bureau's discretionary spending on such services as maintenance, street lighting and streetcars.
The City Council would have to approve the parking increases. If the plan passes, the rates would increase July 1.
Portland parking would still be less expensive than Seattle, where parking will jump to $2.50 an hour in April.
Portland's Transportation Bureau budget has fallen $68 million over the past nine years and faces more cuts in the next year, because of falling state gas tax revenues and rising prices for asphalt, fuel and other materials, said John Rist, the bureau's finance director.
The city is behind on street maintenance, he said. Without additional money, the number of lane miles in poor condition is expected to be 740 in 2016, or about 60 percent of major streets, an increase of 276 miles in 10 years.
Rist discussed the proposal this weekend at a community budget forum in Southeast Portland.
Roberta Foxley, a resident of Northeast Portland, said she supported the rate increase. "We're low compared to other cities, and we don't need to be," Foxley said.
Megan Doern, spokeswoman for the Portland Business Alliance, said the organization understands the need for more revenue, but downtown retailers want the money spent in downtown, not on eastside streets.
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