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City Council Gives Preliminary Approval On Parking Enforcement Bill

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - Parking may be a headache in Pittsburgh, but a new bill could stop things from getting worse.

Pittsburgh City Council gave preliminary approval to a bill that would keep parking enforcement at 6 p.m. instead of extending it to 10 p.m.

As part of a plan to rescue the city's pension, the Parking Authority wants to boost its contributions by extending enforcement and raising meter rates.

City Councilman Corey O'Connor said he worried that extending parking enforcement could harm businesses.

Council voted unanimously to approve the early parking enforcement times. However, some areas still show that parking is enforced until 10 p.m., like on the South Side.

"I do work on the South Side, but I don't usually come down here at night just because i don't want to bother with parking so this will brings me into Pittsburgh more," said Irwin resident Kathy Hoffman.

The disparity between just which neighborhoods would have meter enforcement until 10 p.m. had an effect beyond the business district.

Neighborhood parking saw the effects too when night time parkers looked for ways to avoid nighttime enforcement.

"We still have in the residential permit parking areas enforcement ending at 6 p.m., so if we push the enforcement of the meters up to 10 p.m., it's not that anyone is going to park at the meters, they're just going to park in the neighborhoods in front of peoples cars where it's free in stead of feeding a meter that's a block away or on the same block," said councilman Bill Peduto.

Council has not always been unanimous about parking enforcement. The original idea was to generate more money for the pension fund. Concerns about whether those funds will be adequate have been met for now.

Had council not approved the 6 p.m. enforcement today, it would have gone to 10 p.m. starting July 1.

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