Rocky & Co. have your yule gift all wrapped up

With the amount of money many will be spending on Christmas this year, they will at least be able to save a few nickels and dimes on downtown parking.

The city and the Downtown Alliance began their third season of free downtown parking during the holiday season, which started on Thanksgiving Day. Typically, shoppers have been greeted with holiday bags over the parking meters and are allowed two hours of free parking.

"It's a holiday gift to the city, and it's an invitation for people to come downtown to shop and dine. It's a seasonal event," said Alison Mcfarlane, senior adviser for economic development for Salt Lake City.

The free parking ordinance applies not only to downtown but to the entire city including a few spots around Trolley Square, the University of Utah and Sugarhouse. Tim Harpst, the city's transportation director, said the city feels that free parking is a good way to help not only shoppers but those sightseeing as well.

"Basically, the city council and administration want to do everything to promote downtown, and we recognize that there are a lot more visitors and people who come downtown during the holidays, not only for shopping but also for sightseeing and participating in holiday activities that are going on," he said.

The free parking requires a city ordinance because it prevents the city from collecting parking meter fees. In order to have free parking, the city council had to adopt an ordinance waiving parking fees between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, Harpst said.

In addition to losing an estimated $100,000 in meter and parking citation revenues, parking enforcement is also more tricky, as parking is restricted to two-hour increments.

"It's now a time limitation on parking as opposed to looking at the meter to see if there's time left," Harpst said. "(Free parking) is not an inexpensive gift to the public."

Both the public and merchants have expressed their pleasure about the ordinance.

"We've had many . . . good comments from the public on the fact that they like the program. They can come downtown, find a parking spot on the curb and come in (to a store)," Harpst said. "They appreciate that they don't have to pay the meter. We've also heard from many of the merchants in downtown that they hear these types of comments from the customers so the merchants appreciate it as well."

Harpst said the free parking is just one more thing the city does to facilitate parking and promote downtown. Mcfarlane has been grateful for the city council's cooperation in allowing the continuation of the program.

"We've had wonderful support from the city council. They were agreeable to try it the first year as a test and have been good to continue to allow us to do this free parking for two more seasons," she said. "It's a nice thing to have downtown for those two months."

Mcfarlane says downtown employees and residents should continue using their regular parking and leave free parking stalls for those who are coming and going.

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E-mail: twalquist@desnews.com