As of this afternoon, commuters and shoppers could park for free on the west side of Fourth Avenue, but certain patches of the east side of the street have brand new parking meters that are fully functional and taking coins, cards and app-based payments.
Just like downtown, these meters are set at $1 per hour of parking. Donovan Durband of Park Tucson says the money made from these meters will go to back to funding parking infrastructure in the city, which may eventually include the construction of a parking garage off of Fourth Avenue. He says that he can see a garage setup similar to the Centro Garage that also offers retail and residential space.
“There’s always a fear of the unknown. Resistance to change is natural,” he says. “I’ve been working with them for over two years on this, so it’s not like they didn’t know it was coming.”
He says that he expects that the meters will actually help local business, despite that resistance from many of the Fourth Avenue merchants.
“Customers and diners will be able to find parking easier,” Durband says. “It’s going to discourage people from basically just occupying those parking spaces all day like students and employees. We’re offering permitted parking for those employees now.”
One such employee is Mirely Baca of the Rustic Candle Co. While there is a small shared lot behind her work, competition for those spaces is hot with Bison Witches and several other storefronts sharing the lot. She says the permit parking simply isn’t an option for her or her employer because it’s far too expensive at $20 per month per person—not to mention the fact that the spaces available are almost exclusively a few streets away from Fourth.
“I just don’t feel comfortable being a woman walking alone at night after work. I can’t imagine how some of the women who work at bars are going to do it,” Baca says.
Baca sees the meters as part of an overall trend of setting back small local businesses, which to her also includes the street car construction and the looming two years of additional construction once the Downtown Links project is underway.
“We’re trying to be unified but they’re making it harder and harder to be a local business and a lot of people are upset. The City of Tucson is doing things that just don’t benefit the citizens,” she says. “Maybe if that money went to fixing some potholes I could deal with it.”
Seeing as how the parking meters aren’t going anywhere, if you frequent Fourth, you may want to download the Go Tucson app for easy parking payments. After all, Durband says it’s kind of just the way it is.
“It comes with the territory of being downtown,” he says.
This article appears in Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2015.
Boo.
Its to make sure you ride the CLITT rather than park your car on Fourth. Gotta put some people on the CLITT somehow.
“Edge,” that joke was sorta funny for a few days six months ago. You must be very easily amused.
Every time I go to Tucson downtown is under construction and I always get lost to the detours. I moved to Phoenix – problem solved
Hello parking meters. Goodbye 4th Ave.
The city of Tucson does everything in its power to discourage people from coming to the downtown area. Some cities provide lots that allow the local merchants to validate a parking stub when the shopper returns to his/her automobile for free parking.
Obviously, this would not be something that Tucson wishes to emulate. Instead, they like to soak the poor downtown shopper with as many fees as possible. No wonder many people say “I never go downtown!” (I do, by the way, frequently shop and eat at downtown businesses).
lets make some money so he city can spend on some kind of work of so called art that will not help anyone it seems the thing to do
This is awesome! It will encourage people who live near 4th Ave to walk or bike, opening up space for more people to enjoy the area.
The businesses need more customers who are willing to spend money, ie. the type of customers who is not going to complain about spending 2 or 3 bucks to park for lunch and shopping. We also need to get rid of people who park in one spot all day, or days at a time, not spending money in the area. Good work.
Are some of you people really complaining about paying a $1 an hour to park? According to the City of Tucson website the meters on 4th will only be charging M-F 9am-6pm. In Phoenix they charge on the weekends and at nights, up to $4 an hour. This is one of the cheapest rates in the country and it will be an even better thing if it eventually leads to funding for a parking garage off of 4th.
Good work Tucson!
So the bums can sit on the sidewalk, piss and shit all over for free but we have to pay $1.00 an hour? Well fuck downtown, I’ll find something else to do.
What are people pissed about? There already is a Parking Garage there on Congress/Broadway that is basically brand new and cheap, IMO.
The new meters accept cards. Did you read that? They have finally stepped into the future.
To the candle shop girl. If your biggest worry is being raped walking to your car when your shop closes at 9pm, you are prioritizing life wrong. You work at a candle shop, in 2015, that is not at the mall.