READING, Pa. – Parking in any city can be a headache. In Reading, some say it’s almost impossible to keep from getting ticketed in certain areas.<\/p>\n
Right now, the Parking Authority is running its amnesty program, to make it easier to pay those bills that tend to pile up.<\/p>\n
“It’s really bad, you have to fight for it,” Karen De Jesus said.<\/p>\n
De Jesus was visiting Reading from Quakertown on Friday, but that was enough for her to learn the frustrations of parking in the city.<\/p>\n
“You just have to literally, ‘hey, I was here waiting for it first,'” she said.<\/p>\n
Whether you live here or just drop in for the day, parking tickets in the city of Reading can seem unavoidable.<\/p>\n
Carlos Salguero owns Russo’s Pizzeria & Italian Restaurant on Penn Street. He says parking for his delivery trucks — and food deliverers — has long been a problem.<\/p>\n
“Even the people coming from Door Dash, they’re scared to come in here,” he said. “Oh yeah, they come in a rush, ‘oh give me, give me the order because I cannot get a ticket.'”<\/p>\n
Salguero says the parking problems can be bad for business.<\/p>\n
“Fifty percent of my business went out because of the parking in the last 10 years,” he said.<\/p>\n
And while parking garages in Reading may be gateless, it doesn’t mean they are free.<\/p>\n
Melinda Speas, an office clerk with the Reading Parking Authority says she gets a lot of calls about that.<\/p>\n
“People always say ‘well, there was no gate, so I thought it was free, I just drove in, just drove out,'” she said.<\/p>\n
But the writing is on the wall: Literally, there are signs around the garage on how to pay for garage parking.<\/p>\n
All this can lead to the bills piling up.<\/p>\n