I August of last year, I commented on the fact that the local Merchants in West Dearborn MI were up in arms over the city’s plan to charge for parking in the area. Read my comments here.
The money quote is this:
Let’s see — the businesses will suffer if paid parking is
instituted. So you are telling me that the only reason people come to
these businesses is because of free parking. They are willing to pay
for parking to see a Tiger’s game, or to visit a fancy restaurant, or
when they stay overnight at the Ren Center downtown, but they won’t pay
a small amount when they come to eat or shop in "West Dearborn." Sorry,
sports fans, it doesn’t fly.If you want people to come to your area and shop, give them a reason
to do so. Make it fun to shop there. Clean up the streets, put in new
lighting and store fronts, repave and fix the sidewalks. Increase
security. Put in a 12 plex cinema. Cost too much? Not of you take the
money you get from parking and roll it back into the neighborhood from
which it came.
Someone must have been listening — the plan went into effect last week. And they are going to start enforcement in earnest shortly. They seem to be doing everything right — higher prices on street, lower prices off street…Monthly parking, for business employees is substantially cheaper than parking on street.
Its a good beginning and I think West Dearborn will find that many of their parking woes will go away. The only problem so far that I can see is that there is no comment as to where the money collected will go. My guess, and its a wild one — into the general fund.
Three quarters of the solution is better than none at all.
Good start, Dearborn. Hope my advice last year helped a bit.
JVH
One Response
It is very much true that the resturants in the area where they are charging for parking are going to lose a lot of business. Most of the resturants in this area survive off the business they get during lunch hour. I work in Dearborn, and most of the people I work with go out to lunch everyday; and we have quit going to Bailey’s, Buddy’s, LaShish, & Pizza Papalis because of the parking fee. And we’re not the only ones, the people my wife works with have done the same. Those resturants used to be packed full at lunch, drive past them at lunchtime now and take a look – they have lost a lot of customers. There are 100’s of resturants in a 5 mile radius of Dearborn, and except for those few along MI Ave. they all have free parking, this is a severe disadvantage to these businesses.
Maybe it is good for the auto executives with money to waste, now they can get into all these resturants without waiting for a table.