ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — St. Pete City Council discussed the prices of parking fees and permits Thursday and approved increases after a public hearing.
Residents will now pay double the current fine for overstaying your parking time.
With the lack of parking on Central Avenue, some people are optimistic that raising the parking penalties may cause people to move their vehicles on time once their session expires.
However, with the increase of permits, it’s pushing people away from even bringing their own cars into downtown.
This was brought up in a city council meeting on Oct. 1, where all the present city council members voted to bring this to a public hearing at the next meeting.
Thursday’s vote to increase fees was unanimous.
Under the proposal, expired-meter tickets would rise from $17.50 to $32.50, while most other violations would increase from $30 to $45. Monthly downtown permits would rise to $25, and annual residential permits would double to $30.
In a council meeting in September, council member Deborah Figgs-Sanders brought up how parking is a big issue for small businesses in downtown St. Pete, saying, “We are preemptive from preventing this from happening.”
However, this solution, according to Olivia Gil, won’t change how she would rather walk to work instead of circling to maybe find a spot.
“It’s just like every hour. Every two hours. Like, that price just keeps going up and up. And I just felt like it wasn’t worth it. So I either walk here every day, I just make sure I, like, time out to leave 20 minutes before my shift. Or I take the scooters,” she said.
Gil said that even when she’s not working, she and her friends still avoid parking downtown, and sometimes it’s the factor that keeps them from leaving USF’s campus.
“Last weekend, we went downtown to Valhalla Bakery, and I think it literally took us like 15 minutes to find parking. We were just driving up and down the streets forever,” Gil said.
In terms of how the final vote goes, Gil says this won’t fix every issue, but it could be a start of improvements that may make it easier for her and her coworkers to park near their storefronts.
“I think because there’s so little parking in downtown and there’s, like, a lack of parking garages, I would say, especially during pretty busy streets like here on Central Avenue, I don’t think it’s going to change much,” Gil said. “But it might get people to want to move on a little faster. But then again, I feel like people are just going to be more inclined to pay their parking or, like, take a chance on the fee than call it a day earlier.”
Some other solutions the council is looking into for downtown parking include re-evaluating their previous plan to incorporate autonomous food delivery robots. Two years ago, progress was made to add these robots to the sidewalks of heavily concentrated cafes and restaurants, then stopped.
Back in September, city council members voted unanimously to have the transportation committee look into making this possible for local restaurants whose customers and staff struggle to park nearby.