COVINGTON, Ky. — People parking their cars in the city of Covington are going to have to pay more for longer hours. City officials say this is to keep cars circulating for businesses, and to help fund future parking projects.
Aimee McBride spends her days serving up protein shakes and energy teas to fill up her customers at Aim Nutrition in downtown Covington. But a few too many people aren’t filling up their parking meters and leaving their cars outside her store all day.
“I have seen that, a lot of the time, the cars don’t move during the day. And I’ll have customers that can’t seem to find a spot. They’ll text me and just say, ‘Hey, can we pick up right out front? There’s nowhere to park,’” McBride said.
Freeing up more spaces is exactly what the city hopes to accomplish by updating some of its parking ordinances.
Before, meters were enforced Monday through Friday, from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Now, that’s changing to 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., Monday through Saturday. Before, meters were not enforced on Saturdays at all.
The rate of meters is increasing from $1.10 an hour to $1.50 an hour. Monthly parking rates are going up by $5 across the board.
The city hired Kyle Snyder as the new executive director of its Motor Vehicle Parking Authority to ensure these changes run smoothly.
“The reason for all of that is really to create turnover in parking, so that people can pull up right in front of a business and go into any one of our small businesses here in Covington, and have nice, easy, convenient parking. I think what had been happening was residents were coming in, parking and leaving their car for the whole weekend, and it wasn’t allowing for the turnover,” Snyder said. “It’s a growing pain that we have in Covington with new businesses coming in, and it’s getting more dense. Years ago, you could park wherever you wanted, and there wasn’t demand for it. But there’s now demand.”
He said the city’s monthly rates are still considerably cheaper than comparable spaces on the other side of the Ohio River in Cincinnati.
“I think parking’s really pretty easy in Covington, all things considered. But you know, part of my job is to help solve some problems here and there, and make it better,” Snyder said. “Change with anything is scary for people. I think in the big picture, this is a good problem to have. And hopefully we’re trying to solve it in the best way possible. It’s not really about the money for the city.”
Brendan Jordan, who works downtown, admitted to not always feeding the meter. He said that’s something he’ll have to reconsider.
“I actually work at the Bircus on Pike right there. You know, parking around here is a little tough. You have to have a permit to park in the lot over there. So most of the people I work with, we just kind of roll the dice every day,” Jordan said. “It’s a tough problem to solve. You know, I feel for both sides. I agree, sometimes it’s hard to find parking. Trying to move the people in and out is probably a good idea, but some people just want to hang out all day, so I don’t really know what they should do about it. But, kind of a bummer for us, I guess.”
“I think I should keep more change in my car now, just in case, because nothing hurts worse than a surprise parking ticket,” he said.
Along with creating more turnover, the changes will also help the city upgrade meters, garages and its enforcement.
Most meters have a button for a free 15 minutes for popping in somewhere quickly. Drivers will continue to be able to pay with cash at the meters or via the free PassportParking app available for download in the App Store and Google Play.
While the changes went into effect immediately, the city won’t enforce them until April 7 at the earliest, Snyder said. The city will give out courtesy citation warnings between now and then.
If it gets more people in to buy her drinks, McBride said to sign her up.
“Getting some of the cars that you see here every day in the same spot to find an alternate location to free that up would be good,” she said.
Want to park down here at night–or on a Saturday–don’t forget the quarters.
According to the city, other changes are possible down the road, including the return of parking meters to business areas like the Mainstrasse village.
The city is in the process of updating a webpage to reflect the changes and show the locations of the public parking available in Covington.