Each St. Paul neighborhood has it’s own personality. There are people in every neighborhood who will tell you their neighborhood is the best. I always find that amusing because my neighborhood really is the best. 😉
The people who live near Grand avenue in the Summit Hill neighborhood were able to persuade the city not to put parking meters along Grand avenue. They had all sorts of great reasons for not wanting meters. Some of those reasons had to do with how the meters might look and some business owners were concerned that having to pay for parking could hurt their businesses.
Recently a whole bunch of parking meters were installed in the West 7th neighborhood along West 7th street. I am not sure how it all came down. I can’t find any news articles about it and I don’t think there was a community protest. After all they are just meters not rail tracks.
I do know that those meters will generate revenue for the city and that the West 7th community and it’s businesses are strong and vibrant and the meters will not have a negative impact on them. I am not sure how they will impact the character of the historic buildings as they will be competing with several other modern amenities that we never should have allowed on the street.
The building in the background is one of the oldest in St. Paul. It is kind of hard to see the meters in front of it because of where the cars are parked. I took the photos on a Sunday morning.
Oh, there were complaints about the meters being planted on West 7th. It was a typical City Council deal — the decision was made and public comment was allowed after the fact. But it happened the same time the meters on Grand were being — er, discussed — and W7th’s discussion got lost in the noise.
Funny how that works. 🙂
I have mixed feelings about the meters. I understand the need of St. Paul trying to find more revenue, but most people feel they pay too much tax the way it is. I do agree though where is the public announcement, shouldn’t more people had the opportunity to voice their opinion about this.
I the city doesn’t collect the needed revenue through the parking meters they will raise taxes someplace else. Taxes never go away they just move around.
Yes, taxes do seem to just move around. But it would be nice if they found taxes that didn’t hurt small businesses.
Like I want to take the extra time to feed a meter for $1 minimum to dash in and get my coffee-to-go. Or stop closer to work and park in the coffee shop’s free lot. Shortsighted.