{"id":106866,"date":"2026-02-06T10:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T10:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/106866\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T10:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T10:00:10","slug":"city-hikes-parking-prices-to-remedy-budget-shortfall-the-lafayette","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/106866\/","title":{"rendered":"City hikes parking prices to remedy budget shortfall \u2013 The Lafayette"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>            <a class=\"modal-photo photooverlay\" data-story-id=\"187084\" data-photo-id=\"187178\" href=\"#photo\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\" aria-expanded=\"false\" aria-label=\"View larger version of image.\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/2.5-edited-photo-6-1200x778.jpg\" alt=\"The City of Easton has already faced limited parking spot availability, amid population growth in the city. \" style=\"width:100%\" class=\"catboxphoto feature-image\"\/><\/a>                    <\/p>\n<p>                Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/lafayettestudentnews.com\/staff_name\/andreas-pelekis\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Andreas Pelekis<\/a> for The Lafayette                <\/p>\n<p>The City of Easton has already faced limited parking spot availability, amid population growth in the city. <\/p>\n<p>Citing the need for a balanced budget, Easton City Council voted to increase garage and metered parking prices at its Jan. 14 meeting.<\/p>\n<p>Centre Square meter costs increased from $2 to $3 an hour, with a newly implemented two-hour parking limit. In addition to increased hourly fees for on-street meters, various lots and garages throughout Easton now cost between $2.50 to $3 an hour, with a two to three-hour time limit.<\/p>\n<p>The decision to increase parking fees was largely due to a $1.5 million budget shortfall, explained Frank Pintabone, a councilman for the city of Easton.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe biggest driver was health insurance for our employees went up 20% for 2026, almost a million dollars,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Over 70% of the revenue from the parking meters comes from non-residents, according to Pintabone.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The council\u2019s vote was unanimous, despite Mayor Sal Panto Jr.\u2019s disagreement with the plan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the price of the parking in the garage is way too high, and I know that our parking studies show that the garage should be cheaper than it is to park on the street,\u201d Panto said. \u201cIf you want to park on the street, you should pay more. And I was against it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI gave the city council a balanced budget that did not include that parking increase, and they voted to put it on because they had to fill a gap that they created by spending more money,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n<p>During the council discussions before the parking vote, Pintabone explained that although the public was kept in the loop, \u201cno one spoke out against it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Over a dozen city residents and Lafayette College students approached by The Lafayette did not respond to requests for comment, or declined.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo by Andreas Pelekis for The Lafayette The City of Easton has already faced limited parking spot availability,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-106866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}