Some travelers will pay more to park their cars at Raleigh-Durham International Airport starting Monday, when the daily parking garage fee rises from $10 to $12.

Other parking rates will not change, RDU said: $2 per hour in the daily section of the garage (where $12 is the new daily maximum), $1 per hour in the hourly section of the garage ($24 per day maximum), and $6 per day in the park-and-ride lots.

Parking provides RDU's biggest single source of revenues.  The rate increase will help the publicly owned airport pay for the $570 million Terminal 2 and for a planned overhaul of Terminal 1.  The daily rate was increased to $10 in 2004.

Raleigh-Durham International Airport is raising its daily parking rates on Jan. 16.

The maximum daily rate will increase from $10 to $12. The increase was approved at the RDU Airport Authority's most recent board meeting.

Rates for the park-and-ride lots remain the same: $6 for each 24-hour period.

The increase is part of RDU's plan to pay for the $570 million it spend on Terminal 2, plus debt service and renovations planned for Terminal 1.

The increase was originally scheduled to take place in 2008. Better than expected revenues caused the authority to delay implementing it.

UNC-Chapel Hill wants to institute new permits and fees for night and satellite parking to spread the burden of rising transportation costs.

In the next five years, the university hopes to begin charging for day parking in satellite park-and-ride lots and in campus spaces at night. There's no charge for either currently, but officials say it's needed in order to meet costs expected to rise $6.1 million by 2015-16.

"We're facing some significant financial commitments,"  Jeff McCracken, UNC's public safety director, said Wednesday following a meeting with UNC trustees. "The real effort is to try to equitably distribute costs."

McCracken's proposal, developed with a private consultant and created with input from students and staff, would for the first time charge university workers to park in the several commuter lots around town.

Those lots, including the Friday Center lot on N.C. 54, are used heavily by UNC employees who either can't park on campus or choose not to pay to do so.
Those lots are costly to operate, McCracken said. The cost of the new parking permits would cost between $227 and $390 a year depending on the employee's salary.

McCracken acknowledged there would be some sticker shock for workers unaccustomed to paying for the park-and-ride option.

"But it is one of our most expensive endeavors," he said. "You have to have very frequent bus service or people won't use it."

Read more on this in Thursday's News & Observer.
 

Maybe you thought the 12-inches-from-the-curb issue was settled in February (see story).

The City Council passed an ordinance that said motorists no longer would be ticketed for parking more than 12 inches from the curb in a marked downtown parking spot - with white-paint corners that define the space.

The 12-inch rule is supposed to apply only where parking spaces are not marked, as on residential streets.  You still can get a ticket in a marked spot, if your car isn't inside the marked boundaries.

But I've heard folks still are getting 12-inch tickets, at $20 apiece, in downtown metered and marked parking spaces.

If this has happened to you, I'd like to hear from you.  Please email me, and send a copy of the ticket if you have it.  Don't forget your contact info.

PARKING FEUD: Raleigh residents squared off Wednesday at a committee meeting about a proposed ordinance that would ban front-yard parking. Members of the council’s Comprehensive Planning Committee asked staff for further analysis before making a recommendation to the full council.

WEST TO COMMISSIONERS: Raleigh City Councilman James West was appointed to the Wake County Board of Commissioners last week, leaving vacant his District C council seat. The council will interview candidates and likely choose one at an October meeting. Parks advocate Eugene Weeks is thought to be the leading contender to replace West.

COUNCIL: Meets at 1 p.m. Tuesday. No public hearing scheduled for Tuesday night.

WINE BAR IS BACK: After closing in February, Frazier’s Wine Bar has reopened on Hillsborough Street, New Raleigh reports. The bar also has a limited food menu, but serves mostly wine.

PARTY ON HILLSBOROUGH: A Hillsborough Street celebration that will span eight blocks is scheduled for 1 to 10 p.m. Saturday. The Live It Up On Hillsborough Street festival will showcase “the local culture of the street and surrounding communities,” according to the city. The eco-friendly event will include a farmers market, beer garden and mini-lecture series featuring. Proceeds go to renewable energy projects. For more information, visit raleighnc.gov.

The City of Raleigh activated parking pay stations along its newly revamped section of Hillsborough Street Monday.

Just like the stations installed recently in downtown Raleigh, the machines allow residents and visitors to use a credit card when parking at one of 169 spaces across from N.C. State’s campus between Maiden and Brooks streets.

Motorists can buy parking in 15-minute increments, generally between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. There are different time limits for different areas of the street.

Blue and white signs have been installed along the street to instruct motorists on how to use the new meters, and parking agents will be outside to help for the first two weeks.

I sat down with the self-proclaimed "young buck" of the Chapel Hill Town Council yesterday, Donna Bell. We chatted about affordable housing, homelessness in Chapel Hill, the town's relationship with Carrboro, and the power of perception when legislating.

"The one thing I've learned on the Council is that there are no 'duh' answers," she said. "Everything is complicated."

Bell said hot-button town issues like the vibrancy of downtown Franklin Street, and parking often become discussions between feelings and viewpoints.

"Responding to perceptions is hard for me," said Bell. "How do you have a conversation between two sets of perceptions?

Bell said despite a high occupancy rate of storefronts on Franklin Street, and improvements to parking that are coming as a result of a town study, people don't always see facts the same way.

One person has their facts and another person has their facts, everybody has facts, she said. "But sometimes you have to respond to perception."

The power of perception came into play a few weeks ago when the mayor of Morganton, a UNC-Chapel Hill graduate said the town is "slowly declining."

When asked about Chapel Hill's relationship with neighboring Carrboro, Bell said the two don't work together often. The towns are sharing a green development grant right now, but she said the municipal neighbors aren't necessarily the best of friends. "There's a history of resistance to collaboration between Carrboro and Chapel Hill," she said. ""Carrboro wants to maintain their own identity."

She then shrugs and admits that she usually finds herself in Carrboro, meeting people at Weaver Street (yes, we met there too), rather than Foster's (the typical Town Council dive). Weaver Street, she said, is a much easier walk from her house.

Other hot issues for the council this fall, according to Bell:

-the budget (when is that not hot?)
"We've gone two years without giving [town] employees a raise," she said.

-IFC's homeless shelter permit application and site discussion

-UNC's University Square project
"That'll be big."

-Chapel Hill Museum. Bell said she thinks that issue will resurface.

-Glen Lennox development

"We're not good at having some of the really hard discussions," Bell said. She cites examples like affordable housing, "there's a serious...need," she said.

The Council is begins their meetings September 15.

Sen. Bob Rucho is pleased after getting unanimous Senate and House votes approving his bill to protect car owners against abuses by some tow-truck companies.

“I think the industry is very solid,” Rucho, a Matthews Republican, said today. “But in reality the rogue guys are out there, and they ruin it for everybody. Hopefully we reined them in a little bit.”

The House voted 112-to-0 Tuesday night to approve Rucho’s bill, which applies to 17 mostly urban counties and cities including Wake and Orange counties and Durham.

Where unauthorized cars are towed away from private parking lots, it would: ... [MORE]

In the coming weeks, the town of Chapel Hill will be test-driving four new parking meters downtown to unify the town's parking payment system and make it more convenient for patrons to pay.

The new meters will accept coins, debit and credit cards and will also allow prospective parkers to add money to their meter over the phone.

"You can add time to parking while you're sitting in a restaurant and you think you're going over time," said Ken Pennoyer, business management director for Chapel Hill.

Pennoyer said the meters will be in two downtown locations and will be a part of the field test for three to six months beginning this summer.  He said the town is looking to get feedback from downtown patrons and businesses on the convenience and efficiency of the machines, which can account for the payments of up to eight parking spaces at a time.

"There is frustration with parking in the town because it's a scare commodity," Pennoyer said. "So anything we can do to make it more user friendly is a big improvement...(it's) very exciting to have various options to make parking easier."

Convenience might come at a cost, however. Pennoyer said the town council has discussed the possibility of raising parking rates by a quarter after the pilot program is completed and the new meters have been implemented.

The Raleigh City Council on Tuesday will again grapple with petitions from neighborhoods on the fringes of Umstead State Park who want to keep park patrons from parking cars in front of their houses.

Umstead access advocates have favored a compromise approach -- ban parking only on one side of the street -- for the Trenton Woods neighborhood. Some council members are ready to go along with a request from folks around the corner in Manorbrook, who want to ban all parking by folks who do not reside in the neighborhood.

These conflicts won't go away soon. Umstead is North Carolina's most popular urban park, but state parks officials have had a hard time adjusting policies and precedents steeped in a rural tradition.

Park patrons say the state Department of Transportation made things worse on gravel roads near popular neighborhood park access points. Graylyn Road ,,, [MORE]