Downtown Raleigh parking

[miamiblue]

TBJ is reporting that Raleigh is about to start charging for on-street parking downtown on December 17th.

Personally I'd prefer single-space meters that accept credit cards, but it looks like the city will be using multi-space meters. I hope the ones they use downtown are faster and more reliable than the ones that they were using on Hillsborough Street.

I am wondering how all of this is going to impact the street where I live. I am on a side street in Glenwood South that has mostly commercial properties, but there are two residential properties with a total of five separate residences between them. We have some off-street parking, but it is not big enough for all of us to park, and one person's car always ends up parked in front of our building. Right now, only half of the street parking on the block has a time limit during weekdays, and the rest is unrestricted. We currently do not have parking issues, even on busy nights. However, meters would definitely change that. It would suck if they did not accommodate residential parking in some of the streets with mixed residential and commerical properties. I'd be happy to buy a residential permit if necessary.

[ChiefJoJo]

Looks like the city is finally installing the meters.

[ChiefJoJo]

we'll see in a couple of years whether the chicken little's were correct or not.

Guess what? Two years later, and the sky didn't fall, nor have I noticed any drop-off in business downtown with the new meters. In fact, as a side benefit, a number of business owners have praised the effect that meters have had on parking violators.

Raleigh is full of crappy strip malls with free parking. Downtown is a unique place, thousands of people want to go there, and people will pay to park if they have to do so.

[RaleighRob]

^True. Not to mention that most people who don't want to pay to park are usually there nights and weekends anyways!

[ctl]

I don't see any strip malls downtown or Wal-Marts, and nobody wants them either.

Well, that was the objective of the ill-fated Fayetteville Street Mall, wasn't it? Turn all of downtown into a strip mall. To some extent, Wilmington St still looks that way.

[NCMike1981]

^I must say I still think it would have been cool if Hudson Belk could have hung on downtown for just another 10 years or so until the street was demalled. For them to have stayed open until the mid '90s downtown was rather remarkable, would be kind of cool to have had a department store anchoring downtown in it's current renassaisance...may have been a little easier to attract retail downtown in it's current state. I am very happy to see signs of life downtown however and I can't wait to see what the future holds!

[Jones_]

Add McCrorys and Briggs to list of non-bars/restaurants that hopefully could have made it. Radio Shack was also in the Isaacs space iirc .

Ctl....I am not sure how Wilmington st looks like a strip mall........its our most complete block-face of retail space in the city....its not all occupied but that is a function of the owner mostly.