A local academic in the city of Galveston has been an "advocate" for free parking and has a petition to keep parking free in this island city. Funny thing is, everyone else is opposed to the petition, merchants, city council, and chamber of commerce:
Dolph Tillotson, president and publisher of The Daily News who also chairs the chamber's advocacy committee, said: "The crucial issue is the turnover of vehicles in the commercial district. At present, people who want to visit businesses there can't park nearby because of all-day parking by residents, employees, contractors and others.
Well said. In the end the academic agreed to drop the petition if parking would remain free on Sunday. Everyone agreed and the council voted to proceed with replacement of hurricane damaged meters and hire Ampco System Parking to run the project.
Check out this month's Parking Today. Peter and I go head to head over "democracy" deciding parking rules. I think its balderdash, Peter thinks it's the right thing to do. In this case, the "democratic" petition raised enough hell that the city came close to making the wrong decision.
Of course they should charge for parking, for all the reasons quoted above. And they should charge on Sunday, too. They are going to find that people will come and shop downtown the other six days a week but will shy away on Sunday because there won't be enough available parking. But our "advocate" had his way. Business will suffer, drivers will suffer, and non driving taxpayers will pay for the parking for those who should be paying for it, the drivers. I guess our academic feels that its "more fair."
But there is another issue – Ampco bid the contract assuming they would charge for parking on Sunday. This little tudu has cost them 1/7th of their potential income. They are going to proceed, but personally I think they should be able to rebid the deal. The rules changed in mid stream.
JVH
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