Downtown Parking a Cruel Joke: Residents Aren’t Laughing

By Raul Gomez & Zach Kobrinsky
Publisher / Editor

Well, the City of Fargo finally went and broke the camel’s back. First it was the ticket price increase, and now they’re taking away another day of available parking. In the words of one of the downtown businesses surveyed, “Is this a proposal to assist downtown business or just to generate more income of the city?” We refer, of course, to the city’s recent decision to enforce 90 minute parking on Saturdays.

Part of the problem is that for all the informal surveys and local representation, we feel that downtown residents’ opinions were not heard. And how could they be heard? The perspective of the the Parking Commission seems to have focused its survey on business owners (most of whom did not see a need to change the weekend parking policies). We don’t want to use the word gentrification, but if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck…

Less than 30 percent of the businesses surveyed were in favor of restricting weekend parking on the greater Broadway strip. What kind of a survey result would the city need to interpret public opinion as being against said policy changes? Even with the inadequate survey results, some of those who voted “yes” seemed to be confused as to what the question was implying. The question in the survey asked, “Would you support weekend enforcement on a limited area on Broadway?” While we know now that this question was aimed at restricting weekend parking, some respondents seemed to believe they were voting for things like an increase to 2 1/2 hour parking or increasing the time zone later than 5 p.m.

Where is the justification for this decision? Perhaps if more of the Parking Comission’s members actually lived downtown, they might have a different outlook on the scenario. We understand the desire to improve commerce on weekends, but not at the expense of downtown residents — especially without asking them first. Let’s not forget that downtown used to be low income housing, and many of downtown’s residents can’t afford luxury condos (most of which have built-in parking). What other neighborhood in Fargo has to pay to park at its residence at the minimum of $25 a month ($300/yr.) or as much as $57/mo ($684/yr.). For some residents that’s just not an option. It’s absurd to think that residents should have to pay or park several blocks away from their homes when they come home from work.

Some might argue that walking a couple blocks just comes with the downtown living package, but try saying that with a straight face in 30-below weather. We shiver to think of what this means for the downtown elderly — many of whom get their subsistence from more-than-modest social security checks that can hardly compensate for such outrageous parking costs. For many this could mean as much as a 10 percent increase in living expenses. This is not acceptable.

Granted, POP offers some free parking in the evening and on weekends, but what good does that do for the downtown workforce? What happens to the evening workers? When they come home after their shift, there is virtually nowhere to park during the day without paying the aforementioned fees. The fees mentioned, by the way, are for those who decide to subscribe to predetermined parking arrangements. Should you decide to opt out of these programs, you could be spending infinitely more on parking tickets and impound fees.

And for those who work during the day, they have to spend money just to work downtown. Does that even make sense? We’re sure this will make the future downtown work force absolutely giddy to have to give up a portion of each paycheck just to work there. It’s simple economics: one parking ticket equals two hours of work at minimum wage, or a month of parking equals four hours (half a day) of work. There is limited affordable parking available 8 a.m. - 5 p.m., unless you enjoy playing musical parking lots. And not many employers will be too keen on their staff having to take a 10-15 minute break every 90 minutes to move their automobile, onto an entirely different block, of course.

And now the city’s new same-block policy and ticketing technology are worsening the situation even further. You can’t even move your car to a different spot on the same block anymore, and the city has mustered up the technology to enforce it like never before. Instead of the traditional chalk mark method of car tracking, the parking patrol has gone digital. It’s somewhat disturbing to see new technology used to tack on more penalties and in fact resulting in more towing. At some point the ticketing stops looking like public service and more like “gotcha” tactics, with new penalties literally and figuratively around every corner.

Is it too much to ask that the city get the input of downtown residents before they implement such drastic policy changes? As we are all aware, work wages are not getting any higher, job security isn’t getting any better and the price for material goods and services isn’t going down. This could not have come at a worse time. In our opinion, this is the last straw.

While waiting for a change of hearts on the city commission, perhaps our best resort is for everyone to bog the system down with protests, complaints and appeals through the municipal court system. Take your $15 penalty and assess THE CITY by plugging its bulwark system up with citizen action.

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