Want to park in Old Town Alexandria? Better stock up on quarters.
The city’s recent parking meter rate increases have frustrated some local business owners, who say they’re losing customers because of the onerous parking process.
“The city might have gained an extra few quarters per hour, but they’re losing a lot more in tax revenue from businesses,” said Danielle Romanetti, owner of the Fibre Space knit and crochet shop on Fayette Street.
The City Council in June approved a 75-cent rate increase for city parking meters, raising the hourly charge to $1.75. But Old Town’s streets are still lined with coin-only meters, forcing drivers to shell out more than a dozen quarters for just two hours of parking.
Romanetti said the lack of payment options is a major problem.
“A lot of people just don’t carry cash anymore, let alone change,” she said. “It was difficult to park here before the meter rates went up, and now it’s worse.”
Romanetti said she has permanently lost customers who view Alexandria as an impossible place to park.
Other local business owners took issue with the timing of the meter increase.
“To make customers pay more to park when we’re in a horrible economic recession, when small businesses in Old Town are already struggling … the city’s timing on this was extremely poor,” said Kim Putens, co-owner of Bellacara and Bloomers.
Putens said the higher parking space charges are also making life difficult for Old Town workers.
“There’s no place for my employees to park. None,” she said. “It’s starting to become an issue in hiring.”
Red Barn Mercantile owner Amy Rutherford echoed Putens’ sentiments. She said local part-time employees don’t make much more than $10 an hour, and so paying $1.75 an hour for parking really cut into people’s paychecks.
Rich Baier, Alexandria’s transportation department chief, said the new rates were on par with parking meter charges in Georgetown, downtown D.C. and other urban shopping areas. He said higher rates would spur greater parking space turnover, which in turn would increase the number of visitors to local business.
“There’ll be some growing pains during this change, but things will get better,” he said.
Baier said the city plans to install credit card capable meters on the 100 and 200 blocks of King Street later this year. But with an average cost of roughly $10,000 apiece, installing the new meters throughout Old Town “won’t happen overnight.”
