The Clarksville Parking Commission has approved a downtown parking plan that sets a four-hour time limit at all on-street metered spaces.
The changes were approved earlier this month and will usher in a more consumer-friendly approach to downtown parking as Premier will work with the parking commission to develop a better experience, according to Clarksville Communications Director Richard Stevens.
The changes will maintain the current fee structure and the four-hour time limit will take effect on Sept. 8.
The original proposal recommended three-hour limits, but after city officials received feedback from downtown merchants, an extra hour was added, Stevens said.
The changes were recommended to the Parking Commission by Premier Parking, and the City Finance & Revenue Department, who supervises parking operations.
Discussions began on July 10 after several proposed changes were introduced regarding downtown Clarksville on-street parking.
The approved changes include:
- Deactivating all parking sensors, and making downtown parking a “pay to play” environment.
- A 25-cent payment will be required at all meters to start a downtown parking session.
- The first 25 cents provides 15 minutes of parking time and one hour of courtesy time.
- Thereafter, parking will remain $2 per hour, payable by coin or credit card, and parking sessions will be limited to a four-hour maximum at all downtown on-street metered parking spaces.
- The effective rate for four hours of parking would be a maximum of $6.25.
The changes approved by the parking commission do not affect fees and procedures in place at the three downtown public parking garages and city-controlled surface parking lots, Stevens noted.
There will be signs posted through Sept. 8 to explain the upcoming changes.
Stevens said city officials were having issues with the meters and the new changes will resolve them.
"To insert a quarter to start a parking session will allow us to deactivate those faulty, unreliable senors (in the meters)," he said. "The bigger picture is we're deactivating the sensors so the system is not reliant on these pieces of technology that were hard to keep running properly."
Stevens understands that people may not always have a quarter at that moment, but the concept of parking meters is to circulate the parking traffic downtown.
"From a business perspective, they increase circulation and keep people from parking in a downtown parking spot all day long," he said.
The on-street metered parking spaces will remain free on weekends and after 5 p.m. on weekdays.
Although the parking situation in downtown Clarksville will continue to evolve in regard to the city's planned multipurpose events center, Stevens said he doesn't expect any other immediate plans that deal with parking beyond Sept. 8.
However, he did say he could imagine a need for additional parking spaces in the future.
"This plan does not anticipate introducing an app," Stevens said. "You could see some technology upgrades although, nothing in this plan includes forcing people to use an app ... its just a straight forward, put a coin in a meter type plan."
Alexis Clark can be reached at aclark@gannett.com.
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City Parking Commission OKs downtown plan, changes include 4-hour limit at all on-street meters - The Leaf-Chronicle
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