1000 x 90

Town of Boone Creates Brief Survey Regarding Time Limits for On-Street Metered Parking

FIXE_DSC_0490
The new meters along streets in Downtown Boone. Photo by Ken Ketchie

By Jesse Wood

The Town of Boone has created a one-question survey to gauge opinion regarding time limits for metered parking in downtown Boone.

The question asks if on-street meters in the downtown district should be one hour or two and asks surveyors to explain their reasoning.

While three-hour metered parking has existed on Queen Street for at least a few years, the Town of Boone recently installed parking meters on King Street to quite a bit of criticism because of the one-hour limit.

In addition to the Queen Street lots, the Town of Boone plans to open pay stations at the Depot and Town Hall lots that would enable visitors to park for extended periods of time.

One-hour time limits existed on King and Depot streets prior to the metered parking. The reasoning behind one-hour time limits is that college students would be less likely to abuse the parking spaces for class.

“If we make it more than an hour, then the college students will use it more and we are right back where we started,” Bob Meier, owner of Doe Ridge Pottery and a member of the Downtown Boone Development Association, which has studied the parking situation for several years now.

But business owners have complained about the one-hour limit because its difficult to dine and shop in that period of time and not have to go and feed the meter in between. Plus, before metered parking was initiated on King Street, local business owners could validate customers parking tickets. Now, they can’t.

“It’s making people not to want to come to downtown much. Even dining along, it’s tough enough to eat lunch in under an hour. [I would like to see] at least two hours or extending validation stickers across the board for our community downtown,” said Elizabeth Hempfling, owner of The Wedding Resource Center.

Take the survey by clicking this link.