It's soon going to cost $1.50 an hour to park on the street in downtown Winston-Salem

An effort to postpone action on a plan to raise parking fees downtown and switch from parking meters to a smartphone app fell short this week on the Winston-Salem City Council. It will soon cost $1.50 to park on the street in downtown Winston-Salem.

Council Member Barbara Burke argued that with three new members coming on to the Winston-Salem City Council in December, the new members should have a say on going forward with the plan to charge $1.50 per hour to park on downtown city streets. Burke, who represents Northeast Ward, made a motion to table action until January to give the new council members a chance to weigh in, but the motion failed on a 3-5 vote.



The subsequent motion to approve the new parking plan and fees then passed 7-1, with only Burke opposed. “We’ve all received emails from concerned citizens about the increase going up drastically,” Burke said as the council prepared to vote on the plan. “I have received calls .

.. asking can we consider a gradual increase.

We should table this and give the new council members an opportunity to make this huge, massive decision for the city.” People are also reading..

. In a nutshell, the parking plan involves getting rid of parking meters and digital pay stations on downtown streets, and having folks use an app on their smartphones to pay for parking. Time limits now in place on some streets would remain.

The cost of parking would go up as well: A uniform rate of $1.50 per hour would replace a mixed bag that now includes stretches of free parking, meters that charge 25 cents to 50 cents an hour, and digital pay stations that charge 50 cents per hour. Overstaying in a parking spot would cost more too: The penalty for parking violations would rise from $15 to $30.

Advocates say the change would modernize city parking in line with other major cities, and help eliminate a $700,000 deficit in running city parking operations. In a bid to encourage more people to use parking decks, the charge to park in a city-owned deck or lot would remain unchanged. The parking plan has been discussed now for months, with two public meetings to get feedback.

Unsurprisingly, the higher fees have not been popular, although there’s been a lot of what one might call grudging acceptance too. The idea of modernizing the parking system is one that many find appealing. The council members leaving the eight-member body are Democrats John Larson, Jeff MacIntosh and Kevin Mundy.

Larson was defeated in his South Ward primary by Democrat Vivian Joiner, while MacIntosh and Mundy decided not to run for re-election. Joiner was unopposed in the Nov. 5 election, as was Scott Andree-Bowen, who is replacing Mundy in Southwest Ward.

In Northwest Ward, Democrat Regina Ford Hall defeated Republican Jimmy Hodson to take that seat. MacIntosh said the elimination of the parking deficit could help pay for a popular program that sends out mental health emergency response teams. He said it was unfortunate that the program would raise the parking fee to $1.

50 at one leap. Mayor Pro Tem D.D.

Adams, who represents North Ward, said that if the new rates prove unsatisfactory the city can always “come back and tweak it.” But Burke appealed for a different approach: “Why go back and tweak it?” she asked. “Why not put in place something that our citizens can feel good about from the beginning, and if we need to .

.. gradually increase later on that is something we can come back and talk about.

” When Burke’s motion to postpone action was put to the test, council members Larson and James Taylor of Southeast Ward backed her action, but the others — Adams, Robert Clark (West Ward), MacIntosh, Mundy and Annette Scippio (East Ward) — rejected the move to postpone action. City officials say the new phone app will be up and running and parking meters replaced in the spring of 2025. Burke wyoung@wsjournal.

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