Business
Friday Parking Holiday Downtown
November 25, 2008 
Team Dave is doing its part to provide an economic stimulus without using a taxpayer bailout.
Mayor Dave Bieter has declared Friday to be a parking holiday with no enforcement of parking meters to help out both consumers and merchants in the downtown area. Motorists are being advised to obey safety areas such as crosswalks and fire hydrants.
Special attention that day will be focused on accessible parking violations at the Towne Square Mall and in the area adjacent to Bronco Stadium for the BSU-Fresno football game…have a nice day!
Meter violations yield $12, but if you get popped for encroaching on a driveway or any of the other typical BSU area parking violations it will cost your $37. The jackpot parking ticket is a handicap violation which will quickly dump $100 in the city coffers.
Team Dave is taking a lesson from the legendary robber Willie Sutton who said he robbed banks, “Because that’s where all the money is.
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Comments & Discussion
Comments are closed for this post.
Nov 25, 2008, 9:47 pm
The jackpot parking ticket is parking in front of a (usually unmarked) fire exit.
Got my truck towed, and my wallet lightened to the tune of 225 bucks.
Nov 26, 2008, 10:40 pm
Jason has a great point. If the curbs are not painted red, how does this stick in court? If it was painted red then you take your lumps
Nov 26, 2008, 11:16 pm
A very smart idea. I would shop ther more often if I was not held up for parking every time. I was in town tonight and left before my shopping was done because my parking ran out.
Nov 27, 2008, 9:25 pm
I ride my ‘cargo bike’ downtown and can carry lots of stuff off without worrying about the evil parking trolls. Bikes are better!
Nov 28, 2008, 9:08 am
Until it rains Tom, until it rains.
Nov 28, 2008, 9:10 pm
JIMV: Despite what your mother tells you… getting a few drops of rain on you is not fatal.
I went two years without a car until just a few months ago, and rode my bike on sheet ice covered roads, in blowing snow, before sunrise early in the morning many times and am still here to tell the tale.
People act like it is impossible to survive without a car, but the car has only been around for a tiny little fraction of human existence. With the deep trouble brewing in the petroleum markets, you should not get too attached to the personal automobile, it may be just a historic footnote sooner than you could possibly imagine.
Nov 29, 2008, 4:55 am
Good idea.
Too bad they don’t want to “provide an economic stimulus” for downtown Boise all the time!
I see a parking meter as almost a keep-out sign; it sorta says. “Come drop off as much money as you can in 30 minutes or 60 minutes or whatever this particular meter allows, and then get the hell out of town. We don’t want you wandering along our streets, going into our stores, eating in our restaurants, going to our movies, etc., we just want the quick bucks and then we want you gone!”
For years, I’ve never gone into downtown Boise in the daytime — it’s just not worth it, and it’s obvious they don’t want me there. There are strip malls, other malls, shopping centers, etc., in the Big City, plus numerous smaller cities all around the area that welcome me (and others) to come and shop, eat, play, whatever as long as we want, so why would anybody want to deal with Boise parking?
Nov 30, 2008, 10:18 pm
Tom…sigh,…Tom…there are only a few things that separate 21st century man from semi-harry savages. Toilet paper, modern medicine, indoor plumbing, central heat and not having to play in the rain or ice.
I prefer civilization.
Dec 3, 2008, 12:48 pm
The word “jackpot” jumped out at me, so I decided not to read the rest of the story.
It’s a great idea: A parking ticket lottery!
Every nth parking ticket would be a winner. Instead of the ticketee having to pay, s/he would win the jackpot. Make the jackpot high enough to encourage people to violate parking rules, and you’d have a ton of tickets being paid by “players”.
Of course, it would have to bring in more money than it pays out. That should be obvious, but it’s also becoming obvious to me, that there are many people in charge of huge chunks of cash who may not realize that.
Sure, it would dramatically increase parking violations, but so what? There are babies being aborted, our schools teach communism, and the democrats kicked God out of America in favor of Allah, so why sweat a few cars parked a few minutes over, in light of the intense revenue increase we would see by a parking ticket lottery(?).