By Mayor William J. Healy
Downtown businesses are an essential part of Canton’s future. For these businesses to succeed, they must have a willing partner in the City of Canton to meet their needs.
In an effort to increase the amount of short-term c u stomer parking available to dow n town customers, the City has restructured the layout of several streets to create many new diagonal parking spaces.
Also, to improve the availability of existing spaces, the City has raised hourly parking rates at City meters (for the first time since 1984) from 20¢ per hour to 75¢ per hour. Raising hourly parking rates will drastically reduce the number of downtown employees who use metered spaces to fulfill their daily parking needs.
Because the City’s parking meter rates were so low, some downtown employees had learned to “feed the meter” all day in order to pay far less than it would cost to park in a garage. This practice hurt downtown merchants, who rely on a plentiful and affordable stock of short-term parking to accommodate their customers.
The City has also increased the standard fine for parking violations from $5 to $10. Many local parking garages charge more than $5 for all-day parking, and this had led some to risk getting a parking ticket rather than paying more to park legally. By removing this disincentive to parking in an appropriate location, the City hopes to further increase the amount of available spaces for downtown businesses.
These changes were made in consultation with the Chamber of Commerce and the Special Improvement District’s Master Planning Committee. By creating additional diagonal parking spaces, raising short-term rates to deter all-day parkers, and creating a stronger penalty for parking violations, the City of Canton hopes to assist downtown merchants who are looking to increase their customer traffic.
For additional information about on-street and offstreet parking in the City of Canton, visit www.cantonohio.gov and click “Parking” under the City Services menu.
