Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023–10:36 a.m.

-David Crowder, WRGA News-

Starting Wednesday, Mar. 1, you can park on Broad Street without having to worry about the three-hour time limit.

As part of a parking study, the three-hour limit is being suspended during the months of March and April.

This only applies to on-street parking on Broad, not the parking decks.

According to DDA director Aundi Lesley, the aim of the study will be to get true, hard data about how long consumers are staying downtown and if the time limit changes consumer behavior.

“There’s a lot of conjecture and speculation on what we think,” she said. “Each individual business, depending on their business model, maybe a hair salon, for instance, where their client may have to spend four hours downtown. They are very unique versus a retail shop. So, we would like to get an average of how long people would be willing to stay downtown, and how much they are willing to shop and spend money downtown if there is no restriction of a time limit, which is currently three hours.”

Lesley said that customers can spend as much time downtown as they want, shopping, eating, or just hanging out without feeling rushed or worrying about getting a parking ticket.