Downtown workers encounter more roadblocks than almost anyone seeking to park in the area. Now, the City of Lawrence is considering proposals to increase the cost of finding a spot around Mass Street.
The city’s parking department has recently started booting cars for unpaid citations. Proposals to increase rates for all paid downtown spots and to extend hours of enforcement on weekday evenings are also on the table.
“That’s the part I’m confused about, is why are we trying so hard with these proposals?” said Kelly Corcoran, co-owner of Love Garden Sounds, a record store on the 800 block of Massachusetts Street.
Corcoran worked at Replay Lounge before buying the shop in 2004, putting him at about 30 years of downtown employment.
“What are the pressures?” Corcoran continued. “I’ve just seen this … over and over and over and over, and it’s just the same shit, different year.”
‘(Workers) are making the downtown experience what it is’
People who live downtown or who work there for full shifts multiple days a week naturally bear the brunt of parking costs and enforcement.
Kalie McAlexander is the operations manager and programming coordinator at Liberty Hall on the 600 block of Mass. Throughout her time there since 2020, she has witnessed the impact of Lawrence’s parking enforcement policies, which resulted in the city filing criminal complaints against people with unpaid parking citations until May of this year.
McAlexander is just one downtown employee who knew a peer arrested for outstanding parking tickets. All things considered, she found the film “Cool Hand Luke” to be prescient.
“It’s a Paul Newman movie that starts with him drunkenly taking the heads off parking meters, and that’s why he goes to jail,” McAlexander said. “It’s a prison movie, but it all starts with this incident … So I think it’s really interesting to make that point that parking has become criminal.”
Brad Harrell, the city’s parking manager, said the immobilization policy is his division’s attempt to address this criminalization.
With the new program, people with three or more unpaid parking tickets that are 60 days or more overdue can have their cars booted. Following a booting, “The violators will get a 48-hour notice that the car could be impounded if the outstanding parking tickets aren’t paid before then,” according to the city’s website.
The city announced the immobilization program May 14. It took effect May 19, giving people less than a week to clear their fines or potentially face the boot.
“The immobilization policy that we put in place is to encourage compliance of the parking regulations through a fair and consistent accountability system that replaces the court’s involvement with a more accessible, non-criminal solution,” Harrell said.
According to Harrell, the best way for people worried about the cost of the boot is “to be proactive” if it looks like their car might be immobilized.
Although parking tickets are no longer dragging people into court or jail, downtown employees may still face the punishment of steep costs that can easily eclipse their paychecks.
McAlexander called the boot classist.
“I mean, obviously, if somebody can’t pay, they can’t pay, and then you’re decreasing their chance of getting to work where they would make the money to pay off the ticket,” she said.
Jamie Grable works five days a week at Barker on Mass, a bakery and cafe. On a recent Wednesday, a city employee booted her car.
“I had three unpaid parking tickets that were over 60 days, which was over the limit, and I totally understand that,” Grable said.
At the same time her car was immobilized, she said she was issued a fourth parking ticket “to add insult to injury.”
Grable said the cost of the four parking tickets and the boot removal totaled about $300, which she could not afford until her paycheck hit her bank account. At 1 a.m. the following Friday morning, her brother took her downtown to remove the boot before her afternoon shift.
Grable was relieved that she didn’t have work the Thursday after she was booted, as she might have needed to call out without a car to get to work. She said she thinks a lot of downtown workers are going to get booted because she knows many who have more than three unpaid tickets.
“We are literally just clocking in,” Grable said. “We are making the downtown experience what it is, so it’s brutal.”
But Harrell’s assessment is that, so far, the immobilization program has been successful.
“I would say it appears to be functioning well from the user’s standpoint,” Harrell said. “No vehicles have not resolved their violations and recovered their vehicles through this process since we started back in May, and it has been a pretty seamless process, which we haven’t had any major challenges as we’ve kind of implemented this new system.”
‘Employees don’t have the money to be paying (parking rates) every day’
Despite needing to park downtown for extended periods, employees lack a consistent, catch-all solution.
According to Harrell, they can pay $240 per year for a general downtown parking permit. The pass allows people to use any garage, a 10-hour meter or other specific locations, per the city’s website. Aimed at downtown employees and residents, the permit can also be purchased quarterly for $60.
Alternatively, the city introduced the downtown employee parking permit last year. The pass, which costs $75 annually, currently only includes one lot.
“This was intended to be an affordable option for cost sensitive employees within the downtown district,” Harrell said via email.
He also suggested long-term lots, such as the one where the Lawrence Farmers Market sets up on Saturday mornings, saying it costs approximately $1.60 each day during enforcement times.
The ideal choice for any one person is a moving target, influenced by a multitude of factors: the location of their job, their workplace’s break policy, weather conditions, the time they arrive for their shift, whether they work back-to-back shifts at different businesses, their financial situation and more.
For example, Lot 16 — the one where employees can park with the permit — is at the far north end of downtown, on the 600 block of New Hampshire Street. Though convenient for some businesses, an 11th Street worker would face an approximately 0.7-mile walk before and after a shift, which they could spend mostly on their feet.
Staffers may alternatively use the two-hour lots and the 10-hour free spaces in parking garages. These options also have their limits — for instance, those who park in the two-hour lots will have to leave work to move their car frequently if they want to avoid a ticket.
Some downtown businesses remain open during inclement weather that causes the garage roofs to shut down. An employee seeking a cost-free solution can then opt for a longer walk from a free side street in poor weather or seek out a two-hour spot.
Even then, not all business owners allow their employees to step out that often, or to even pay through the app. “Some places don’t want you to check your phone at work,” McAlexander said.
“If you think about when workers’ shift times are, it’s also the most prominent times of business,” McAlexander said. Her call time when she worked at a downtown restaurant was 5 p.m.
“That was a high traffic time,” she said. “Everybody’s parking for dinner. I was texting my boss that I was running late because I couldn’t find parking.”
Grable also raised the issue of safety.
“It’s mostly young women that work in this coffee shop,” Grable said. “It’s not safe for us to be walking super early or super late. Lawrence is a pretty safe place, but still, it’s 5:30 in the morning, pitch black and I’m walking to my car.”
Cost, too, is a persistent concern. Grable said that $2 a day may not seem like much to some, but the monthly price tag can exceed what she earns in a full day of work.
“A lot of downtown employees don’t have the money to be paying that every day,” Grable said. “So it’s like you either have the choice of parking half a mile from where you’re working, or eating that ticket.”
Proposed rate increases, enforcement changes
Now, workers are confronting the prospect of potentially increased parking fees and additional policy changes.
The city contracted with Walker Consultants to explore revisions to parking rates and policies to preserve the public parking fund. In February, Harrell presented the recommendations to the city commission as part of the 2026 public parking fund budget proposal.
One suggestion included the elimination of 2- and 10-hour free parking spaces, except for at the Vermont and Riverfront Garages. As of now, the parking department is no longer considering that proposal.
However, the city may still turn its eye to the 10-hour free spots on the roof of the New Hampshire parking garage. Harrell anticipates an influx of long-term parkers due to an upcoming affordable housing development, New Hampshire Street Lofts, nearby.
“It might be in the city’s best interest to consider the top level to go to paid parking or permanent parking to accommodate those long-term parkers,” Harrell said. “However, that is not part of this recommendation right now.”
Suggested rate increases to all paid downtown parking spots and permits are still on the table.
Under the current proposal, a parking permit would go to $360 from $240 per year, marking an increase of $120, or 50%. Garage transient parking would see a $3-per-day increase, going to $5 from $2. Initial parking meter citations would rise to $15 from $10.
The proposal also includes extended enforcement hours, from 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., on Mondays through Saturdays. Enforcement currently runs from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. on those same days.
The parking department is also pitching neighborhood resident permit parking for $10 per year per permit, as well as progressive pricing on Massachusetts Street and the 100 blocks, where each additional hour of parking past the first two would cost more than the last.
For a full rundown of the proposed rate and policy changes, see the chart below, provided by the parking services department:
According to Harrell, an increase in parking division income is necessary to stabilize the public parking fund. It does not receive tax dollars and is meant to be self-sustained through these types of rates and fees.
“As we’ve taken on additional financial responsibility through the public parking fund, like bond notes of the parking garages, electrical and stormwater charges from the parking lots, all of those things have negatively impacted the long-term success of the parking fund,” Harrell said.
Walker Consultants and the parking division project that the fund will be in the negative by 2028 unless the city approves these changes.
Harrell said that, like many municipalities and universities, the fund’s greatest cost is parking garage maintenance, separate from beautification. Per the February presentation to the city commission, “there is still an estimated $4.3 million in deferred maintenance in the garages that should be addressed over the next 10 years.”
He added that the cost of offering free parking and “really affordable long-term rate parking … have really weighed heavily on the rest of the parking operation.”
As low-cost parking options face further restrictions, both Grable and McAlexander separately questioned why the parking division has not considered a free or discounted parking permit for workers with options along the whole strip.
McAlexander was concerned that the current downtown parking pass is not affordable for some.
“It’s just adding another bill onto working downtown,” she said. “… There is no downtown without the workers, and us getting here is becoming a problem.”
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Corcoran, too, said it would be nice to see more free lots for staff specifically, even if they are not directly adjacent to businesses.
“60 bucks … a quarter (for a downtown parking pass) is too much,” Corcoran said. “Most people won’t spend it, they’ll just take the chance of getting away with it, or they’ll use the (two-hour) free lots.”
He later added, “As long as they keep the free lots, I feel like they’ve done the best they can for our staff.”
‘Make parking a nice thing for people, not a burden’
“I’m not against any changes to the parking program, but I don’t think it’s a great idea to charge people more just because, like, that’s market rate,” Paul DeGeorge said.
DeGeorge is the co-owner of Wonder Fair, a fine prints, stationery and zine store on the 800 block of Mass Street. He is comfortable with raising the price of parking on Mass itself, saying that it would primarily affect visitors and tourists who are prepared to pay.
However, DeGeorge said it “rubs me the wrong way” that parking fees all throughout downtown keep facing increases. He was also alarmed that more drastic proposals, such as the now-rejected move to eliminate two- and 10-hour free spots, had been considered at all.
“Make parking a nice thing for people, not a burden, because it enhances their experience of our downtown, which is one of the major economic centers of our entire town, and that’s how you do economic development,” DeGeorge said.
He added, “And if somebody pays $5 less on their parking ticket, well, then they’ll buy a side of fries at Terrebonne, you know?”
Corcoran figured Love Garden customers might be annoyed by some of the proposed changes, but that it wouldn’t deter them from making their way in.
“They like the store, they’ll figure it out,” Corcoran said. “Do I think it will hurt us? No, I do not. Do I think it will hurt other businesses? Maybe.”
Harrell said he regularly responds to emails from business owners concerned that increased rates will affect their customers and revenue.
“I have a pretty good working relationship with different business owners in the downtown community, and I’ve had conversations with them directly,” Harrell said. “So I think it’s always important for me to outline the reason why, and the goal of parking and parking enforcement is really just to encourage the turnover of these most valuable parking spaces and really improve the accessibility and the ability to patronize our downtown businesses.”
McAlexander, however, said that parking meters have been a direct impediment to Liberty Hall’s business.
“You can feed the meter for two hours — sometimes movies are two and a half hours,” McAlexander said, also noting that double features run well over the meter allotment. “So you’re either missing part of the product that you paid for because you had to leave (to feed the meter), or you’re checking your phone, which you’re not allowed to do.”
She said Liberty Hall’s customers “are really frustrated by it,” and that some of her older clientele struggle with navigating the parking apps. As a result, they “are having to park really far away … and then it’s really hot, and I’m worried about them,” McAlexander said.
Liberty Hall has amended its hours of operation in response, closing on Monday and Tuesday and opening after 5 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday. Employees have also taken to feeding the meters on behalf of their customers when needed.
Despite contacting parking services about her concerns, McAlexander alleges that she did not receive a response.
“I think it sucks that I can’t, as a small business worker … I can’t reach out to my city, which is not a big city, and say, ‘How do I make this work?’ and get any sort of reply,” McAlexander said.
Corcoran has also measured his hopes.
“I could go to meetings and sit there and listen and maybe pipe up about it, but I just don’t have a lot of optimism that my input is going to matter in that particular way,” he said.
Help for parking problems
Harrell said his department has created a parking education program to pair with its new noncriminal enforcement process, and encourages people to schedule 5- to 10-minute appointments with division employees.
“If (people are) consistently getting parking citations in one general quadrant of our downtown, we can talk about affordable solutions and ways to avoid that,” Harrell said.
He added that the team is allowed to “void two delinquent citations” through this education process. Eligible citations include standard $10 parking violations or two $40 violations, which could prevent a boot in some cases, Harrell said.
He also encouraged folks to use the appeals process to address potentially invalid citations.
“Waiting until the vehicle is immobilized is always kind of a last step, and we certainly want to get it taken care of before that time,” Harrell said.
Contact the city
Harrell said parking reform is an ongoing conversation that involves the community.
“I really respect and love to hear the feedback that might come from these business owners or just people coming downtown to visit our community,” he said. “There’s no cookie-cutter program that’s going to work for all downtowns and that’s why … listening to our community’s feedback, and listening to our business owners’ response to these type of recommendations really helps me morph the recommendation to the best way I feel it will fit our community in our downtown district.”
Community members can reach out to the whole parking division via email at parking@lawrenceks.org.
“They can also email directly if they feel they’re not getting the response from other members in our team,” Harrell said. His email is bharrell@lawrenceks.org.
Folks can share their thoughts on the parking proposals throughout the city’s budget process. Read more coverage on this topic here.
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Wulfe Wulfemeyer (they/them), reporter and news editor, has worked with The Lawrence Times since May 2025. They can be reached at wulfe@lawrencekstimes.com.
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