Locals, officials react to parking meter proposal

After the installation of a new set of parking meters, Bloomington residents will no longer be able to avoid paying for parking by using the two-hour shuffle in the downtown area.

“We only have a finite number of spaces and we need to figure out an efficient way to manage those,” said Susie Johnson, director of the public works department.

Johnson said the new meters will be installed this summer and functioning by August.

The city council voted “yes” to the new initiative March 21 after listening to a presentation from the city’s department of public works, as well as public concerns.

The parking meters would be enforced from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., Monday through Saturday.

Residents will have to pay 25 cents for every 15 minutes of parking.

The council also approved a parking permit, geared toward those who commute to work downtown regularly.

Johnson said the permit will allow residents to park in one of the parking garages for up to 30 hours a week. The permit will cost $25.

There will also be designated lots where residents can park for three consecutive hours for free once a day.

Johnson said residents can only park in these spots once every calendar day, but they can feed the meter if they need to stay parked for more than the three initial hours.

According to the Jan. 16 city council legislation packet, the council office reported receiving a petition with more than 1,400 signatures opposing the ordinance.

Installing parking meters was a recommendation the city received from Walker Parking Consultants in 2007.

Johnson said the firm had given the city a variety of recommendations and they had already followed through on a bulk of them.

During the Feb. 16 city council meeting, Marge Hudgins, president of the Old Northeast Downtown Neighborhood Association, said parking meters in single family residential blocks would ruin the family area.

Johnson said parking meters will be placed in areas that are residential but not where there are a lot of families or children.

John McGuigan, an employee at Caveat Emptor Used Books and member of the Bloomington Coalition Against Parking Meters, said the Walker study had been created to produce a specific result. Johnson said the parking meters are meant to make things more efficient and help people save money by parking in parking garages rather than having to move their cars frequently on the streets.

Katelin Vesely, Bloomington resident and Athena employee, said she was concerned about parking spaces for the disabled and if the initiative would be an inconvenience for them, according to the city council minutes from Feb. 16.

Johnson said with this project the city will add parking spaces for disabled or handicapped residents and all handicap spaces will be single space meters.
David Carter from the council for community accessibility  said public works department did not consult with them regarding parking meters even though they have
been in communication regarding other disability issues throughout the years.

“My attitude about the meters, as a person who always uses a wheelchair, is not very different from most of the other opinions I have heard: it is a pain in the butt, and more likely to discourage me from patronizing downtown accessible businesses,” Carter
said in an email.

“When we do this project, we want to insure that convenience for handicapped visitors is addressed,” Johnson said.

Johnson said with the level of new development in the downtown area, revamping the parking system is a matter of efficiency.

“Additionally, Indiana University is considering monetizing a large portion of their parking that currently the community is able to take advantage of on the nights and the weekends,” Johnson said.