City leaders address business owners' concerns over new purple parking zones
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Leaders addressed business owners' concerns surrounding the purple parking zones popping up across Pittsburgh.
On Monday, KDKA-TV talked to a business owner in Squirrel Hill about the new purple curbs. On Tuesday, KDKA-TV took the concerns of citizens and business owners to city leaders.
Eddie Lowy knows all about rare coins. He owns the last existing coin shop on Smithfield Street, but he knows nothing about why the curb out front turned purple.
"I said what are you doing and they said it's an experimental program, we're gonna start charging all the delivery services by the minute," Lowry, the owner of Banner Coin Exchange, said.
This way, a space is always ideally open, and it should eliminate the double parking that backs up traffic.
"I thought it was rather petty," Lowry said. "Downtown is hurting enough as it is."
KDKA-TV took his concerns to the city, which said this will save people money, especially drivers for Uber Eats, Grubhub and DoorDash who should otherwise pay to park at a meter.
"It is 0.067 cents per minute," said Maria Montaño, press secretary for the mayor. "So it's $12 for an hour, but nobody is using these zones for long-term parking."
Montaño said the city is trying it out until 2024. A camera by the purple zone snaps a picture of your license plate and sends the car's registration holder the bill.
"It's making it safer for residents because this program in its first year has reduced the amount of double parking in these business districts by up to 40 percent in some of them," Montaño said.
A fresh batch of 27 new zones will soon pop up. Arepittas on Cherry Way does not think the purple zone in front of its business will hurt the lunch rush.
"For us personally, it's really convenient because for example when we're going to get stuff for the restaurant, we never had a space to park because there were always cars here," Jonathan Rosas said.
The good news is a $100,000 grant is paying for the technology and for the city to test it all out.
Also, if you're a delivery driver and plan to use them, sign up and use the app because you get a cheaper rate.
