The St. Joseph City Commission will formally consider a newly revamped downtown paid parking plan next week.
After a rocky rollout to paid parking last year and the program’s suspension, the city’s parking subgroup got to work meeting with residents and business owners to learn how it could be improved and reimplemented with more support. Community Development Director Kelly Ewalt tells us the changes being proposed for this year are dramatic, including a reduction of the paid spaces from more than 800 to about 175. She says only on-street parking will be paid, while parking in lots will be free.
Ewalt says city residents won’t have to pay anything to park downtown, either on-street or in a lot, as long as they register with the city.
“That’ll be exactly the same as they do for their parks passes,” Ewalt said. “All the city residents get free parks passes, so it’ll be the exact same process as that.”
Last year’s paid parking program started in May, while the new start date will be June 1.
“Getting through Memorial Day, it’s busy but a lot of the stores and restaurants don’t get super busy until June. So, we’re doing June 1 through Labor Day. Also, it won’t start until 10 a.m. and it’ll go to 7 p.m. so the people who want to come down and walk their dogs along the bluff or have coffee and bagels and whatnot int he morning, they won’t have to pay.”
Ewalt says there will be a few paid spots on the east side of Main Street this year, namely along Pleasant and Court Streets.
“We don’t want people parking all day in front of the businesses. We want people to be able to find parking to visit our shops and restaurants and boutiques and whatnot. So we always want to have parking turning over in those highest demand areas.”
That’s because the entire goal of the program is to keep vehicles moving and free up parking spaces in high-traffic areas. She does note all ADA parking will be free, and the pay stations will be closer together this time around so people don’t have to walk as far to use them. Those who don’t want to use a pay station can just use the Passport app, which is the same app used last year. It will cost $2 per hour, up to three hours.
The city commission will consider the new plan during Monday’s regular meeting.
