Pay Up Or Push On

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Story Published: Nov 19, 2009 at 6:30 PM PDT

By Sade Malloy

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YAKIMA -- Paying to park. The Committee for Downtown Yakima is managing the parking lots in the downtown core. The new boss is bringing new rules. Action News has details on how it will affect your bank account.

They say they're making space for you but it's gonna come at a price.

"People don't want to pay for parking," says Dan Fortune, Yakima driver.

The Committee for Downtown Yakima is now managing three parking lots and they're changing the rules: instead of three free hours you now get two and it's a $1 an hour after that.

"That kind of stinks cause I park here all the time, if I'm eating lunch with my dad," says Abiel Hoff, Yakima driver.

CDY says it's not trying to drive parking revenue up as much as increase traffic downtown. The more people moving in and out of the parking the more customers spending money.

Most of the people we talked to say they don't mind paying for parking the one thing they did have a problem with, was the lack of signage.

Action News asks,"Do you think it's a hassle?"
"No not particularly just need to know it," says Judi Fortune, Yakima driver.

The only problem with that is these three lots have always been pay lots.

"Paying for parking has not been strictly enforced as it had been in the past," says Chris Waarvick, Director of Public Works, city of Yakima.

That was then, the parking is being enforced starting with warning letters and eventually $20 tickets.

"We're finding that sometimes we have people parking for days." says Dan Kelleher, Committee For Downtown Yakima.

Parking for days, for free and without punishment is no more, pay up or push on.

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