The Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority board's unanimous decision to allow free parking at any metered space controlled by the agency downtown and on the North Shore on Friday and Saturday this week is sure to be popular. So is a related announcement that there will be no charge to park in the CARTA garage at Tremont Street and Frazier Avenue.
They should be free for this holiday weekend. Those who want to shop, dine or visit the aquarium, museums and other attractions in those parts of town can do so on those days without worrying about feeding a meter or getting a ticket. The free parking should be a boon for all involved.
Retailers likely will be the biggest beneficiaries of the CARTA decision. The free parking will level the playing field, so to speak, for many merchants and restaurateurs in the heart of the city and in the bustling business areas on the North Shore of the Tennessee River. They've become accustomed to complaints that parking fees make a visit to their establishments more expensive than at other retail and commercial centers where parking is free. For two days at least, they'll get a reprieve.
The same is true for those who operate downtown attractions. They, too, field numerous complaints about the cost of parking from patrons who say that the fees make dining out or bringing visitors downtown too expensive. Parking costs, while generally modest, undoubtedly contribute to the widely held perception that a trip downtown or to the North Shore is unnecessarily expensive. The moratorium later this week directly addresses that belief in a positive way.
The parking holiday does not apply to all the spaces controlled by CARTA in the city. Only about half of the 4,000 spaces under agency control will be free. CARTA parking garages, except for the one at Tremont and Frazier, will require fees as usual. There's hope, though, that might not be the case in post-Thanksgiving holiday periods in the future.
Tom Dugan, executive director of CARTA, says the agency will consider the possibility of extending the free parking policy to the garages and lots it oversees around town for Thanksgiving next year. Doing so makes sense.
Adding the two-day moratorium to CARTA's list of parking-fee holidays will benefit businesses and attractions without doing substantial harm to CARTA's bank balance. Dugan says turning off the meters later this week "might have an impact on [CARTA] of about $2,000."
That's really not much to pay for the increased traffic the moratorium should bring to downtown and the North Shore and for the goodwill generated among local residents and visitors to the area. Parking meters and garage fees might be a necessity in heavily trafficked areas for much of the year, but a brief respite from them at this time of the year is a welcome gift to the community.