Cedarhurst doubles weekday parking field meter rates

Meter rates in Cedarhurst parking fields have doubled during weekdays, village officials said.
The parking field rates now match street parking meter costs, village administrator Salvatore Evola said. The new rates, which took effect June 26, are 25 cents for the first 40 minutes and 25 cents for each additional half-hour. 

The parking fields still are free on weekends, though drivers must pay the street meters on Saturdays and Sundays. 

Previously, parking field spaces cost 25 cents for an hour. The new rate is really 25 cents per half-hour, but a 10-minute grace period for the first payment makes it effectively 40 minutes, Mayor Benjamin Weinstock said.

“You pay for 30 but you really get 40,” Weinstock said. “We don’t think it’s going to bankrupt anybody.”

Parking fields are expensive to maintain, he said, and rising costs were being paid for by taxpayers. The board of trustees — which voted to approve the increases about a year and a half ago — instead wanted to fund improvements and operation costs through the people who use the parking fields.

The village waited to implement the increases for several reasons: the business community asked the board to wait until after the holiday season, and then new high-tech street parking meters were installed during the winter. “We waited for everyone to get used to that,” Weinstock said. 

He said there has been some pushback on the increases, but not many complaints. 

“The shopping population has reacted to it with mostly a shrug,” he said.