Sadly there isn’t a ton of signage indicating this until you’re already in the deck.

Why don’t you actually ask some of the downtown merchants how many times they’ve gotten a parking ticket while they unload their cars? They will laugh at your absurd notion of “lax enforcement” when they recount their ticket costs.

Also, let’s congratulate the city on making downtown parkers more accessible to thieves and muggers. Instead of being able to park close to where you want to go in and simply walk, you have to walk (possibly in the dark) to some parking machine 60 feet to pay.

This may not sound like much, but I’ve already heard some women say that they don’t feel safe walking around downtown at night, much less having to go into a dark parking deck where they might be abducted and killed or walk to a dark corner of Moore Square to pay a machine. I’m sure this sounds like a darkly cynical scenario until you talk to the family of the murdered woman who worked for Progress Energy.

Let’s call this what it is — an additional tax on doing business downtown. The Downtown Raleigh Alliance and the City of Raleigh simply will need to pay an additional tax on doing business with a downtown Raleigh merchant. When I eat lunch at TirNaNog, that’s an additional $2 added to my sandwich cost. When I get coffee at the Raleigh Times, an additional $2 for that. If I go to pick up some copies at the printing shop, I will also need to pay $2. To visit downtown three times a day, that’s an additional $6 a day folks.

Perhaps meters would work, but when I can go to Cameron Village (free parking) or North Hills Mall (free parking) or even Five Points (free parking), then people will avoid this tax and go elsewhere. Sorry, but I can’t afford to pay an additional $20 a week or $80 a month for parking, nor do I wish to walk (possibly in the rain) to some central ratty credit card machine that some homeless guy may have decided to use as a urinal.

I know there are a lot of people who abuse the system, so let’s get rid of all of those pesky people who come to the downtown area several times a week to clear up parking for people who come downtown only every once in while.

In fact, let’s get rid of all of the cars period, like they did with the Fayetteville Street mall. That worked great didn’t it? Just ask some of the merchants who went out of business until the city decided it was a dumb idea.

This is also a dumb idea and I predict they will be ripping these meters a few years from now to “bring people back to downtown” for a new renaissance. In a down economy, it seems strange that the Downtown Raleigh Alliance is trying to keep people from visiting downtown during the day — I thought their purpose was the opposite.