“There’s a recommendation that we will be putting into effect where rates will even decrease on the peripheries of the downtown area where we have 12-hour meters on 5th and 6th streets. Those will actually be reduced in cost from 50 cents and hour to 25 cents an hour.” – Mayor Sam Teresi
JAMESTOWN – Motorists who park in downtown Jamestown during regular business hours may have noticed some recent changes to downtown parking meters.
According to the Jamestown Post-Journal, all two-hour maximum parking meters downtown will soon be changed to three hours, with many having already been adjusted. Also, two-hour parking meters on the outskirts of the downtown will be changed to 12-hour maximum, along with almost all of the surface lot meters except the upper deck of the Main Street parking lot.
The changes are part of a series of recommendations put forward by the mayor’s Ad Hoc Parking Committee, which was formed in 2016 to identify and recommend improvements to downtown parking in anticipation of increased traffic volume with the opening of the National Comedy Center. In November 2017 the committee presented its recommendations to the city council. At that time no timeline was given of when the changes would go into effect
Since the release of the recommendations, city officials have not formally announced if or when the changes would occur at any of the city council meetings that WRFA has attended. However, we did have Jamestown Mayor Sam Teresi in the studio earlier this month and asked for an update on downtown parking. During the interview the mayor did say that some of the downtown parking committee recommendations would soon be going into place.
“Some of the things recommended include converting the 30-minute and two-hour meters to three-hour meters – that is in the process of moving forward; Improved signage; and the rates will stay the same,” Teresi said, adding, “In fact, there’s a recommendation that we will be putting into effect where rates will even decrease on the peripheries of the downtown area where we have 12-hour meters on 5th and 6th streets. Those will actually be reduced in cost from 50 cents and hour to 25 cents an hour.”
WRFA was prompted to ask the mayor for an update on downtown parking after the city of Buffalo announced changes to its downtown parking rules, drawing sharp criticism from motorists and residents, largely because Buffalo is increasing fees and expanding hours for when it will charge for parking on city streets.
The mayor said no such changes are in place for Jamestown.
A map depicting the current layout of parking spaces in downtown Jamestown. Recommendations from the city’s ad hoc downtown parking committee would make several changes to downtown parking, including the removal of the two-hour free parking zone on the east side of the downtown. That recommendation has since been tabled.
“There’s not going to be any doubling of parking rate downtown. There’s not going to be any lengthening out of the times when folks have to pay for parking like in Buffalo,” Teresi said. “It’s still going to be free parking after five o’clock everyday downtown and all day and all evenings on Saturday and Sundays. So from five o’clock on Friday until nine o’clock on Monday morning it will be free parking in all spaces in downtown Jamestown in the paid spaces.”
One of the more controversial recommendations from the downtown parking committee was to remove all 2-hour courtesy or “Free” parking spots in the downtown.
However, because of concerns and backlash voiced by downtown businesses, the mayor said that city will not be implementing that recommendation. Unlike some of the other changes that are taking place in downtown parking, removing the 2-hour free parking spots downtown would require action by the Jamestown city council.
City officials are also still working on possibly acquiring “smart” meters that would accept credit cards and the PayByPhone app, along still with coins, to pay at a meter. But due to funding challenges it will have to wait until it can receive grant money from the state or other sources to move forward with that plan.
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