Down Town Parking Meters: Gotta Pay to Play

I was reading an article in Mean Rachael's blog titled  Choose Your Own Adventure: Austin Parking Meter-Style . In this article Rachael describes and provides links about Austins newly passed parking scheme. Rachael Farris has blogged since 2005, she has a background in news media and PR, she has many other attributes that make her opinion and blog creditable. Rachael is personally against this plan and so am I.  The City of Austin just passed a bill to "help with the budget," downtown parking is a pain as is but now they are going to cut the free parking hours.  The old rules say parking is free Monday thru Saturday after 5:30PM and all day Sunday; the new rules state that free parking is only between midnight and 8AM Monday thru Saturday and all day Sunday.  So what does that translate to ? It means you have to pay for an extra six and a half hours of parking every week day, that's $6.50 extra at a rate of a dollar an hour to park. This is just gonna make it more expensive to go out downtown, its an extra fee thats going to come out of the average Jo's pocket.  The new fines also come with addition of eleven new members to the City of Austins Meter Enforcement team.  Austin hopes to raise an estimated $1.5 million a year in additional revenue. Most of this money is going to come from the late night party-ers, So if you like to go downtown for a nice drink or any other special occasion, expect and extra fee just to pay for parking. The new parking meter ordinance is scheduled to take effect in August 2011.