Recently a DT business owner told me about a meeting he had with the city about parking for DT business owners and their employees. His beef first off, is that the parking ramp fee is outrageous. Over $700 a year. Secondly, he feels that parking should be either FREE or heavily discounted for DT business owners and their employees. Why? first off because DT business owners collect sales taxes for the city, and secondly, city employees who work DT have FREE parking. So while the city requires all other DT employees to pay for their parking (or their employer), city employees do not. So while DT business owners collect sales taxes for the city, we subsidize the city employee’s parking.
I am not sure where I stand on the issue, but I have often said, to promote DT we should make all of the parking ramps DT free all of the time, and just have metered parking on the streets.
I asked him how the meeting went, he said something like,
“I was the last person in the room when it was over with.”