The price of parking tickets could rise steeply next year to help pay for
Durango City Council members indicated at a budget work session Friday that they would support the option because it would balance the city transit budget without cutting service or increasing fares.
The transit budget faces a $191,000 deficit, and the increase in parking tickets could raise an additional $265,800, according to city documents.
“This is encouraging people to get out of their cars,” Mayor Christina Rinderle said of the proposal.
She also suggested printing a message of the parking tickets to let people know that their parking ticket revenue would fund transit.
“We’re increasing rates because our citizens desperately need transit,” she said.
The change will likely be considered as part of a public hearing on a parking ordinance on Tuesday.
In January, the city might give people a month of $12 tickets with warnings that the rate is about to go up, to help roll out the program.
“Do what you need to do to roll it out in a sensible way,” Councilor Dick White said.
The change could sustain the transit budget for a year, but it will not solve a possible larger deficit in 2018.
If the Colorado Department of Transportation reallocates the way federal grants are dispersed, the city could lose up to $700,000 in funding.
The city will be more involved in discussions about how the changes will be made after sending letters to the state, but it will see cuts because it is second in the state for grant funding. The Roaring Fork Transportation Authority, which serves Aspen, Glenwood Springs and Rifle, receives the most grant funding.
In light of the cuts, Durango must consider a new dedicated source of funding, such as a sales tax increase, to keep transit running, White said.
A sales tax question could be put to the voters in November 2017, he suggested.
Councilor Sweetie Marbury opposed that idea because it might drive shoppers elsewhere.
“We already experience a great loss to other places; the internet, as well as south,” she said.
To address transit and infrastructure issues, such as streets and city buildings, the council should consider asking voters to reallocate the 2005 half-cent sales tax, Rinderle said.
A quarter-cent of the 2005 sales tax helps fund open space acquisition and preservation, and voters must vote on whether to extend the tax in 2025.
“We’re going to end up with amazing parks and crumbling infrastructure,” she said.
mshinn@durangoherald.com
