In a marathon, ten-hour meeting Tuesday, Wichita City Council members heard an update and review of a plan to convert to paid parking downtown, as they held their second hearing on the city’s budget for 2025.

Assistant City Manager Troy Anderson said the plan to go to a paid system is part of a parking and multimodal plan that was adopted by the Council in 2023.   He said the city’s parking fund can cover basic operations but it’s not providing enough to cover needed maintenance and repair of parking garages and facilities.  A parking fee is expected to generate over $3 million a year, and it would provide for lighting, security and safety improvements as well as maintenance needs.   Anderson said the fee that has been discussed would be in a range of 75 cents to two dollars an hour, based on the recovery of maintenance and operational costs, credit card fees and best practices.   He said businesses downtown would have options for providing parking for their employees.

The city has received some pushback from residents over the plan, and a number of informational meetings have been scheduled over the next few weeks to get public input.  The plan is scheduled to go into effect on January 1st, 2025.

Council members agreed to delay the purchase of equipment, which was to begin this week, for the implementation of the parking plan.   They have scheduled more discussions at their September 10th meeting, to allow more time for input from the informational meetings.