La Crosse still struggling to make pay to park work

It really shouldn’t be this difficult. But La Crosse has struggled to figure out how to run the downtown parking ramps. And now the city is going back to square one. A multitude of problems have plagued the ramps, from vandals damaging the parking gate arms, to people literally being stuck in the ramps. The city has plans to hire a parking coordinator to come up with a workable plan for charging people to park, but that person hasn’t been hired yet. So the city is going back to the old days when parking was free in the ramps. It will be free to park in the city ramps at least until May 1st while they try to figure out ways to keep people from vandalizing the ramps, and to keep homeless people from camping in the ramp’s stairwells. La Crosse is hardly the first city to charge for parking in public ramps, yet this city can’t seem to figure out how to make it work. It took years to come up with plans for pay parking, and the fee schedule remains confusing at best. Meanwhile, ramp revenues are down, and expenditures are up, especially as the city allows free parking, hires a security firm to patrol the ramps, and pays for a parking coordinator. Let’s hope that whoever the city hires to be in charge of parking can come with a system that works, because so far the city has failed miserably in its efforts.