Simplified: Parking on Phillips Avenue is likely to be more costly – as is the cost of a parking ticket – after the City Council this week approved changes to the city's parking ordinance. Here's what you need to know about the changes.

Why it matters

  • These changes have a couple of goals. One, the city wants to see parking turn over more often on busy downtown streets because more cars means more people means more money being spent.
    • And two, the city hasn't increased parking fee caps in more than a decade, and Finance Director Shawn Pritchett said these changes are needed to make sure the city's public parking fund can remain self-sustaining.
  • Parking fees on Phillips Avenue are set to increase to $1.75 per hour (up from $1.50 per hour currently), and the hourly rate to park in the 10th street mural parking ramp as well as the 1A ramp across the street will go down to $0.75/hour.
  • Changes also have the support of downtown business owners and residents, several of whom spoke in favor of the ordinance change on Wednesday night at the council meeting. That includes Nancy Savage, owner of Child's Play Toys, who said reduced fees in the ramps will help both her employees and her customers.
"Reducing the price in the garage, I think, is one of the most genius things," Savage said. "And I don’t know why we didn't think of it before because it will definitely get people moving from Phillips to the ramp."

Tell me more about the changes

The changes impact the cap on parking rates downtown, and don't mean the fees immediately jump to that cap.

  • For example, the cap on street parking is now $2/hour, but at least for now, the highest parking rate will be $1.75/hour on Phillips Avenue.

Pritchett said these caps haven't been raised in 14 years, and caps on some parking rates (like what businesses pay to get a meter bag blocking a spot downtown) haven't been raised in two decades.

Here's what's changing:

  • Monthly parking lease caps move from $87 to $100
  • Hourly parking rate cap moves from $1.50 to $2
  • Meter bag rental fees move from $7/day to $15/day
  • Meter bag monthly rental fees move from $100 to $200

What about parking tickets?

Those fees are also going up.

The cost of forgetting to feed the meter will go from a $10 parking ticket to a $15 parking ticket.

  • The city is also simplifying how those fees increase over time, moving from a steady increase to just doubling the fine at 30 days.

Citations for improper parking – for example, a big truck that hangs over the white line on Phillips – will increase from $15 to $25, doubling to $50 if not paid in 30 days.

And citations for parking during a snow alert will increase from a $35 ticket to a $50 ticket, also doubling if not paid in 30 days.

What happens next?

Changes to fees in the ramps are set to take effect later this month, and the rest of the changes are set to take effect Jan. 1, 2027.