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Parking Meter Fees to Increase, Hours to Extend
Amid budget concerns, the Los Angeles City Council voted today to increase parking meter rates and to extend hours of operation. Citywide, hourly rates will be soon be at $1.00 an hour at the minimum. On the high end, some high usage areas will have rates as high as $4.00 an hour. However, you can still can deposit smaller amount of coins for prorated minutes.
Meter hours, which are traditionally 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. will be extended two hours to 8:00 p.m. citywide. In major entertainment and shopping districts identified by the city, hours of enforcement will extend by four hours to 12:00 AM on Friday and Saturday nights and by nine hours from 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM on Sundays, excluding holidays.
With these two moves combined, the city's 40,000 meters that raise $20 million annually are estimated to garner an extra $18 million, according to Bruce Gillman, Spokesperson for the Department of Transportation.
"Over the past two decades, parking meter rates have not kept pace with the demand or inflation, while off-street rates for privately-owned facilities have continued to rise," Gillman explained leading into some Shoupian urban philosophy. "This growing disparity has created an incentive for drivers to 'cruise' for hard-to-find and under-priced on-street parking, thus generating a great amount of unnecessary traffic congestion and pollution."
Parking meters prices in the city also haven't increased much in the past 20 years. The ordinances are to become effective in late August and citywide implementation will take about 90 days.
Photo by nahh via Flickr
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