Downtown Orlando – First, it might be shock, then frustration once you find that parking ticket on your windshield. News 6 has uncovered the City of Orlando dished out more than $1 million dollars worth of parking citations just last year alone.
“You gotta watch it. The city has no issues with issuing a ticket if you’re even one minute over,” said Greg Fleischman, owner of Menchie’s in Downtown Orlando.
Fleischman said parking is always problem, “It’s extremely frustrating for our employees and our customers. A lot of our delivery personnel complain there is no place to park or pick up.”
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News 6 requested a list of parking citations from the City of Orlando over the last few years. We found out the number of tickets went up around 20% from 2021 to 2022. It increased by 34% the year after, with the city collecting more than $1 million in tickets. Most of the violations were for on-street parking with drivers not paying the meter or parking in prohibited zones.
News 6 asked the city why it gave out more tickets. In an email, Cassandra Bell, Press Secretary, Office of the Mayor, said the increase could be due to several factors including:
More downtown visitors after the pandemic ended.
Sharp increase in evening and event activities (record number of events).
New properties have been placed into city inventory, including the Grove Park Lots and the Livingston lot.
The Downtown Parking District (area of enforcement) was expanded in the summer of 2019.
Cassandra Bell
The Creative Village is the only place with meterless spaces in the Downtown Parking District, meaning drivers have to pay through the ParkMobile App. The app notifies drivers where there are open parking spots and if their time is almost up.
On-street parking across Orlando is only two hours. The city suggested drivers park in a garage if they plan to stay longer. Drivers can reserve and pre-pay for a parking garage spot ahead of events.
“We really want to make downtown as convenient as feasibly possible,” said David Barilla, Executive Director of the City of Orlando’s Downtown Development Board. The board recently voted to extend its ParkDTO Program which was created to get more people to come downtown.
“Why we ultimately launched this program is we surveyed our businesses and ultimately individuals and community members at what they feel would help them utilize downtown more. Parking was one of those components,” Barilla told News 6.
According to Barilla, the city will cover your cost of parking under the program, “If you park in one of the city’s metered on-street spots, you use our ParkMobile App, put in your space number and enter a coupon code. Very easy ParkDTO. It will actually give you eight uses to utilize up to the remainder of this year.”
The program also includes free valet service for several businesses near or along Church Street on Wednesday through Sunday nights.
“We have a free valet operator that works on Church Street. You just pull up there, you let them know you are going to one of our participating establishments,” said Barilla, “when you go to ultimately have that dinner or drink, you just mention to your waiter that you valeted and they will cover that cost for you. That’s ultimately covered by the Downtown Development Board.”
Another way the city is looking to get people downtown is through public transportation, including free SunRail rides for big weekend events.
“The city is trying to do whatever they can in terms of providing public transportation, but I don’t think the city is there yet,” said Fleischman. “It just takes a lot of flexibility, essentially while we grow our baby city into more nationally known.”
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