The folks in Norman, OK, need to get with the program. Read about it here. They have a couple of nice big parking structures. They are filling up. The city wants to charge for long stay in the parking structures. So far so good. No, not really. The merchants are afraid that the long stay folks, if they have to pay, will park on street and take those free spaces and there will be no room for customers to park. Yes, that will most likely happen. What to do, What to do?
Just as at DTW, parkers will find the cheaper place to park and leave the more expensive for someone else. So if they charge say $.25 an hour to park in the structure, and $.50 an hour (Max 2 hours) to park on street what will happen. Folks who want to stay longer than 2 hours will park in the structure and everyone else will have a choice as to what they want to do. The marketplace will take care of the problem.
The merchants are ringing their hands that people will not come downtown if they charge for parking. Balderdash. If there is convenient on street parking available for a buck, I doubt very seriously if anyone who was coming downtown anyway, would balk. If they do, then the problem is that there is no reason for them to come downtown and that's an entirely different issue.
If you build it they will come – and frankly, will pay a buck to park
JVH
OH, my guess is that a lot of those parking on street in front of the stores now in those free spaces are employees – so not only will a pay system solve the problem of folks moving from the structure to on street, but it will free up spaces on street.
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