Raleigh leaders considering fees for evening parking
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- City leaders are considering charging for parking during the evening hours in downtown parking decks, due to nighttime partiers leaving the decks trashed.
Raleigh's Parking Administrator Gordon Dash says a small percentage of drunk and rambunctious people who park for free in city-owned decks on nights and weekends are doing everything from vandalizing elevators, to leaving personal trash in the stairwells.
"It started out great, but we're really finding that there's a revelry crowd, which is common with nightlife, which sticks around a lot longer than other folks when they go home, and they're the ones most responsible for what's happening in our parking decks," Dash said. "Broken bottles, there's also the human waste factor as well, unfortunately. Those things take a long time to clean up and the smells have to be dealt with. "
"Elevators are often out of commission for days at a time and the ones who feel the brunt of that are the daytime customers who pay for parking and they expect a whole lot better service when they come in to work," he added.
Dash is asking the Raleigh City Council to consider charging for parking on nights and weekends - anything from a $5 flat fee, to a $1 an hour.
The city council has considered that fee before, and some say the City is now using this problem to justify the fee to help pay off debts.
However, Dash says the problems are real, and instead of maintaining and repairing parts of the deck, maintenance crews have now become janitors.
"About 60 percent of their duties now are on the janitorial and they were never expected to be that when they first started," he said.
Based on previous figures, the City could stand to gain about $1 million in revenue if they charged a $5 flat fee for night and weekend parking.
Dash expects city council to take up the issue again in their upcoming work session.
