LOWER MERION \u2014 Lower Merion is considering increasing parking meter rates for the first time in over a quarter of a century. <\/p>\n
During a police committee meeting this week, the committee approved a motion to authorize the township secretary to advertise notice of intent to adopt an ordinance amending the township code that will increase parking meter rates in Ardmore, Bryn Mawr, Merion, and Bala Cynwyd.<\/p>\n
The proposed meter rate change would increase parking rates from $.50 to $1. per hour for all parking meters except for some designated parking meters found in the Ardmore Business District. <\/p>\n
\u201cThose designated parking meters, including those found on Rittenhouse Place, Cricket Avenue, Cricket Terrace, and Parking Lot 5 (Cricket Terrace) and Lot 6 (Schauffele Plaza) would increase from $0.50 to $1.50 per hour. The parking meters in the Cricket Avenue Parking Garage would experience no increase and remain at the current rate of $0.50 per hour,\u201d according to a staff memo to the commissioners. <\/p>\n
Brandon Ford, assistant township manager, said that over the last 25 years, the rates have not kept pace with inflation. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason we\u2019re coming forward to you with this is that again, it\u2019s been 25 years since we\u2019ve adjusted rates,\u201d Ford said. \u201cThe rates that we are charging have not kept up with the overall cost for maintaining those parking meters as well as our overall parking services program.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ford said another issue with the long-term parking meters is that employees in the business district are using the long-term meters that could be used by customers in the Ardmore Business District. <\/p>\n
The township also hopes to encourage people to use the Cricket Avenue parking garage by maintaining the current, lower rate. <\/p>\n
According to Ford, the township staff has projected that the increased revenue from the new rates would generate about $900,000. <\/p>\n
Something else township officials believe will happen with the higher rates is that there will be faster turnover in meter usage, which could generate additional business for the stores in the township\u2019s business districts. <\/p>\n
Commissioner Scott Zelov said it was time to move forward with the increase. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very pleased to report that, as the commissioner representing Bryn Mawr, the Bryn Mawr Business Association, which I attend every month, thought this was okay to do,\u201d Zelov said. <\/p>\n
Commissioner Shawn Kraemer also expressed support for the increase. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think even with the increases that you\u2019re proposing, this is still a steal,\u201d Kraemer said. \u201cParking in Lower Merion, I think, is cheap compared to, say, Philadelphia, for the most part. So I think it\u2019s more than fair.\u201d <\/p>\n
The committee voted unanimously to move forward on the proposed ordinance change. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOWER MERION \u2014 Lower Merion is considering increasing parking meter rates for the first time in over a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":368891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,728,50,1448,2830,1311,33431,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-368890","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-local-news","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-pa","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-philadelphia","14":"tag-top-stories-mlt","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115524702422634211","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}