Council Approves Fee Expansion, Czar Saperstein Spins
City Council today approved Mayor White's plan to expand the hours that fees will be required to park at city meters downtown.
Previously, those parking downtown on weekends were not subject to the regular parking fees.
Now, those fees will be collected Monday through Saturday.
The Mayor and his transportation "czar" continue to present what is effectively a tax increase as part of its mobility plan.
In fact, this component of the plan does nothing to enhance mobility. Councilman Michael Berry, who ultimately supported the measure, gave away the game a few weeks ago (in an interview with the now-defunct News24):
"There is a lot of money to be collected by increasing parking meter rates or by adding a number of parking meters," City Councilman Michael Berry says. "But I think you’re doing it in sort of a backdoor way and the public really resents it. Not only was it not popular, it probably wasn’t a really good idea."
That's right -- this is not about mobility, but about the city squeezing even more revenues out of people.
Berry was right a couple of weeks ago -- it's not a good idea, and the public should resent politicians who propose and conservatives who support such stealth fee increases.
Incidentally, the mayor's traffic "czar" denies the move is designed to enhance revenues:
"We are going to look at each block face, walk each block to see where we should meters and how much time is appropriate for each location," Saperstein told reporters after the 13-1 vote authorizing the parking plan. "This is not about raising funds for the city. This is about the rotation of curb space."
It it weren't about the revenues, the proposal would have been made revenue-neutral and fares would have been cut across the board to compensate for the additional fares that will be generated on Saturdays. Instead, rates are also going up:
Houston city council gave the Mayor Bill White the green light for the last part of his traffic plan Wednesday. It includes extending parking meter hours to Saturdays, although street parking at night will remain free.
However, the same can't be said for the daytime.
One of the little prices of life in the big city is about to cost a little more.
"Twenty five cents for 10 minutes is already pretty high, if you ask me," said one downtown parker.
But Houston parking meter rates are going up.
Right now, the top price parkers pay at short-term meters is 50 cents for 10 minutes.
But that maximum rate is about to triple to as much as $1.50 every 10 minutes.
And the top price at long-term meters, currently 85 cents an hour, will increase to as much as $1.50 an hour.
Sorry, Czar Saperstein. Not buying what you're selling.
Of course it's mostly about the revenues. And it's a good rule that when politicians say it's not about the money, it's almost always about the money.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 07/28/04 18:29 | Houston | Technorati
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KHOU-11's Doug Miller reports that as of June 13, extra METRO police manpower will be deployed downtown to ticket jaywalkers:
Downtown jaywalkers should be on the lookout in the month of June...
[Linked on 06/03/05 by blogHOUSTON]
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Comments
From the Chron piece:
[On many other streets, meter fees will be lowered to better match supply and demand, he pledged.]
I'd like to see some stats on this. Where? How many meters? How many streets? Proof, please.
Posted by callie @ 00:03 on 07/30/04
No doubt.
It seems to me that Houston bloggers ought to stay on top of this promise of sorts. Put that on your to-do list. :)
Posted by Kevin @ 06:22 on 07/30/04
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