City of Amarillo looking to repeal paid parking downtown

KFDA
By Alyssa Riggs
Published: Nov. 14, 2023 at 5:35 AM GMT-7

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) - The current Amarillo City Council is looking at taking away paid parking downtown.

The city leaders are discussing repealing the ordinance addressing paid parking today.

If it’s approved, effective immediately, the paid parking spots will be ineffective.

“We want to bring people into downtown, we want to bring them in, we want them spending money in retail businesses, we want them visiting all these locations downtown and whatever is going to create that environment that’s of course what we want to pursue,” said Donny Hooper, managing director of Public Works, City of Amarillo.

The signs will remain up, but you won’t have to pay to park.

There are currently 900 paid parking spaces downtown and 1,200 timed parking spots.

The plan is to change the paid parking to a mixed model of timed parking with one and two-hour limits.

“We just want to know how we can make Amarillo the best place to live and we’re taking steps this is one of those steps,” said Hooper. “I think that the citizens have spoken, this is what they want and that’s what we’re going to do.”

The city council decided paid parking downtown did not generate enough revenue to be beneficial to the city. Over five years, the city made $158,000 in revenue from paid parking.

Next, the city will talk to the central business district owners to ask what they want in regards to timed parking and the signage for paid parking will be taken down.