The Hill undergoes a parking makeover
Parking around the Hill has undergone a major overhaul in recent weeks, leading to a new pay and display system and higher costs for commuters.
Construction of the new battery powered, solar charged meters on the Hill took up many parking spaces, but was completed Monday afternoon.
The new meters allow the use of credit cards and provide the user with a receipt to display in their windshield.
To cover the cost of purchasing each meter, the Boulder City Council recently approved a parking rate increase from $1 to $1.25.
Doug Mayhew, parking operations manager for the Downtown and University Hill Management Division and Parking Services, said the equipment should be mobilizing out of the parking lots with the construction now complete.
“We wanted to make sure [the meters are located] in a place where they could serve the most spaces available,” Mayhew said.
For some students who park on the Hill, the new meters are an expensive nuisance.
Ryan Heath, a 21-year-old junior marketing major, said he thinks the new meters provide complications to a system that already worked.
“I like the fact that you can use your credit card, but they’re kind of inconvenient because you have to go back to your car,” Heath said. “I’m not a fan of them.”
Donna Jobert, finance manager for the city of Boulder’s Parking Services, acknowledged that the increased fee would not be popular.
“Parking fees and taxes are similar- no one likes to see them go up,” Jobert said. “[The increase] was to cover the capital cost of purchasing machines.”
Jobert said that each pay and display machine costs $7,700 not including installation. The revenue from the increased fees will help pay for other city services as well. Such services include reinvesting into improving parking in Boulder and providing downtown employees with free eco-passes, Jobert said.
Jobert said the benefits of the new machines should be recognized among commuters as well. Meter tickets are expected to go down because of improved parking education and the ability to see exactly when time runs out on a ticket.
With the new machines, Jobert said she anticipates that the city will be provided with much better data in regard to traffic congestion and busy points in the year. She said the city would then pass this information on to business owners.
According to the Downtown and University Hill Management Division and Parking Services’ Web site, parking tickets issued jumped from 17,388 in 2001 to 24,371 in 2002.
Whether or not the new meters will actually help reduce the number of parking tickets will be decided with time, Jobert said.
Contact Campus Press Staff Writer Stephen Oskay at Stephen.Oskay@colorado.edu.
