The 'Mayor's Park $5' program encourages local businesses to reduce their parking prices to bring more people downtown.
Denver mayor Mike Johnston is encouraging downtown businesses to reduce their parking prices to $5 to encourage more economic activity, reports Andrew Kenney in Denverite.
A new pilot program dubbed "Mayor's Park $5" offers $5 parking at around 3,000 privately owned spots in the downtown area on weekends, nights, Monday and Friday. According to Kenney, "Johnston described it as a response to calls for help from downtown restaurants struggling to get people to eat at their establishments." The mayor worked with local parking lot owners and the app SpotHero to establish the program, which he hopes to expand to 5,000 or more spots before the pilot ends in September.
Upon questioning from Kenney about whether the city should be encouraging transit and biking rather than driving, the mayor said, "So there are some small number of activists who believe the purpose in urban design is to make it miserable to drive a car. That is not our strategy."
Read the full story: How (and why) Denver’s mayor got private parking lots to set $5 prices
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