RALEIGH COUNTY, WV (WOAY) – Parking is a long-term, ongoing problem in Beckley.
Mayor Ryan Neal says only half of the city’s parking meters work and are so old they can’t get the parts to fix them.
Officials addressed parking at the Tuesday, April 8th council meeting.
“City Council’s going to consider doing a two-hour parking, and that’s to keep somebody from parking 24 hours in a spot,” Neal said. “We’ll let people park there for free. You got two hours to take care of business, pay bills, go eat lunch, whatever you want to do, and then move on.”
Everyone wants downtown Beckley to have some semblance of what it used to be. But if people can’t easily find parking, it’s never going to work. We need to help local businesses get foot traffic. But with non-working parking meters, many people give up out of fear of getting a ticket.
“And then we have other people that take advantage of the fact that the parking meters don’t work,” said Beckley-Raleigh County Chamber of Commerce President/CEO Michelle Rotellini. “So they decide to park there all day. When that starts happening, then you’ve left no parking for your customers.”
Upland Soul Food has been on Main Street in Beckley for a little more than a year, and the owner says her customers are hurting for parking. DoorDash can’t pick up orders because there’s nowhere to park. There are even days where she puts her hazards on and parks in the road to unload because she doesn’t want to take her only customer spot.
“The designated spots to park for two hours (free parking) that’s still streets over, like if you’re trying to do something quick you don’t want to have to walk three blocks over just to pick up your food,” Tamara Grand Jean said. “If you have a business up here, I think you should have at least a couple of parking spots for your customers.”
Do you have trouble finding parking when you’re in Beckley? Well, you’re not alone.
Rotellini calls the two-hour parking idea a great solution. She says the Parking Commission’s Cody Reedy looked at what other cities around us were doing.
“And we felt like Lewisburg had a really good model; they have two-hour parking,” she said that’s enough time for someone to go into the courthouse, pay their bill, go to Upland Soul or Fosters, Scentister or Burm Bookstore. “Then get in their car and vacate the spot for someone else.”
According to Reedy, after meeting with many downtown businesses and property owners, it seemed they were all having the same problem, and that was the parking meters. So the city tore many of them out and used those parts to fix the ones still standing.
“It has been confusing to many on where to park and for how long when meters aren’t working,” said the councilman-at-large. “I think making two-hour parking temporarily until we can get a new parking meter system is the best solution for downtown businesses and consumers.
Reedy added that this is the first step in the right direction of making Beckley’s downtown parking situation more user-friendly.
The city thinks free two-hour parking in parts of downtown is a good compromise.
“We reinstated the parking commission several months ago,” the mayor said. “We’re just going to try to figure out a way to simplify the parking for Uptown Beckley.”
