Downtown Bloomington to give people ‘more time’ with increased parking limit
UPDATE (7:30) — Bloomington city council approved the resolution to extend parking time. Original follows below.
BLOOMINGTON, Ill. (WMBD) — Longer stays are expected for Downtown Bloomington visitors.
"We've been having a lot of conversations, especially with our downtown business owners, just about parking and the overall state of our downtown," said Billy Tyus, senior deputy city manager for the city of Bloomington.
On Monday's Bloomington City Council agenda is a discussion to increase the city's allocated parking time.
"You want to give people time to spend time in our downtowns, but on the flipside, you need a healthy amount of parking turnover so that people coming and going can also visit those establishments," Tyus said. "So, as part of those conversations, and they'll continue, what we heard is perhaps going to two hours would be more helpful."
One business manager in Downtown Bloomington said the change would be easier on their customers.
"A lot of them are going to start appreciating that, I know that we've talked to a few customers that come in kind of when they're like traveling, and we've had to answer questions about parking since a lot of us have been dealing with it," said Ebony Blackmon, manager of Coffee Hound in Bloomington. "I know a lot of them ask us to watch their stuff as they leave and move their car. So I feel like it's gonna be a stress relief for everyone overall."
They say other businesses in downtown are in agreeance that an increase of parking time from 90 minutes to two hours will positively affect them and their business.
"I've spoken to some of them who have also gotten towed and ticketed, and I feel like, if not similar hours, they do have hours that will benefit from that since some of them are open later than us and therefore people who are going to have to worry about that, they can just know for a fact that it's going to be fine," said Blackmon.
The city will also discuss how to go about acting on the problem of outstanding parking tickets, which a city official said totals more than $350,000 across 47 different people. He said that is money owed to taxpayers.
