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New meters and hours causing confusion downtown

49 views · Published 20 January 2015 · 3:50 · Indexed 20 September 2026

Channel: LOCAL 12 · 2015 · News & Politics

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CINCINNATI (Rich Jaffe) - If people have been downtown since the city of Cincinnati started installing new parking meters and enforcing new hours, they may have found themselves in a bit of a dilemma.

To pay or not to pay?

People might call it meter madness. Over the last few weeks a lot of street-parkers have gotten out of their cars, walked up to the meter and then just stood there shaking their heads, not knowing what to do! 

The city of Cincinnati has 5,000 parking meters on the streets. City officials replaced 1,450 of them a few years ago and they're now in the process of replacing another 1,500 with new, solar powered, credit and debit card accepting, smart meters.

But in the process new meter hours, 9 to 9 and Sunday 2 to 9, have also gone into effect. New stickers reflecting the change can clearly be found on many of the meters. The problem is people can find old stickers with old days and hours on many of those same meters.

Down from Dayton, Leigh Ann Fulton was clearly unclear about what to do on 7th street.

She told Local 12, "You can either pick or choose. 2 to 9, 9 to 9, maybe even 7 to 9 or 9 to 5."

Local 12 found similar meters on Fourth Street near the convention center. Mark Zapf said he's just given up and is now parking in a garage. A city official told Local 12 they didn't want to waste money replacing the old stickers when they plan to replace the meters. He also said on the confusing meters, it's the old hours that are being enforced. But if you want to pay for additional hours, feel free.

Bottom line, stick with the sticker. The old one if you've got it.

And here's some more parking insight, until recently the meter enforcement folks really did get off work at 5 p.m. even though the old meters ran until 6p.m. With the city retaining control of the meters a few more full time and part time people have been hired, but they're spread out more to cover the additional hours.

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