Short North parking: How much you’ve paid in tickets so far
In the first two weeks of enforcing the new Short North parking plan, officers issued 2,650 tickets. If all those tickets were $30 (minimum fine for parking meter non-payment), that means the city collected $79,500 in just 14 days. That wouldn’t even be taking into account $50 fines for vehicles parked in permit areas.
Read the ticket fee breakdown here.
Columbus Dispatch reports parking enforcement officers expect the number of tickets to drop in the coming weeks as people adjust to the new rules.
The city launched the new plan on January 22, but granted residents and visitors a grace period where they wrote $0 tickets to educate people on the new rules. Then on February 20, the plan began being enforced for real.
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With the new rules, nearly every street in the Short North, Italian Village, Victorian Village requires a permit or payment via a smartphone app. The new rules also dictate a larger jurisdiction (AKA more chances to get a ticket, infers Columbus Dispatch) that the city had to hire a third more officers to patrol.
Below are the five zones the neighborhood has been divided into:
Visitors who don’t have a permit will have to pay $2 an hour between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m., and $3 an hour until 10 p.m. in three zones that border North High Street. Visitors will pay $1 an hour from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and $2 an hour until 10 p.m. in the other two zones. Between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m., only permit holders can park in those areas.
Guests can also buy 24-hour passes for $6.
Drivers who don’t have a permit are required to pay for meter parking with the new ParkColumbus smartphone app.
Hourly parking in permit areas also requires vehicles to move every three hours, which the city will police with license plate readers.
A residential permit costs $25 a year, and each household can get two permits.
Residents who live in homes built in 2009 or later may be ineligible for a permit because the builder was expected to have accounted for parking as part of the construction, reports The Dispatch.
Read more about the new parking plan here.
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