Talk Back: Parking Meters in Patchogue Village?

At the most recent Patchogue Village Board of Trustees meeting, it was announced that early talks to explore possibly bringing parking meters to Patchogue Village have begun.

During , Patchogue Village Mayor Paul Pontieri said it is being explored in order to help facilitate Patchogue Village's need for more parking with its future growth.

"The reason for the parking meters is that it is apparent that within the next several years, with the growth of the downtown we are going to need additional parking," Pontieri said. "It is not something that should be borne by the commercial district and/or the residential community."

Pontieri also cited nearby Villages such as Babylon, Port Jefferson, Amityville, Rockville Centre who bring in $300,000-$400,000 which could go toward adding more parking to Patchogue Village.

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Pontieri also said the parking meters would be set up mainly to monetize parking from out-of-Village residents coming for evening entertainment and to avoid conflicting with retail.

"A couple of the ideas that are being discussed in terms of parking meters are for residents to park for free, that the hours be from 5pm-2am, so as not to hurt the retail businesses, and to set up a process where employees of the retail and restaurants would be able to purchase parking passes," Pontieri said.

Pricing ideas were not discussed, but Pontieri said that he felt a person coming to the Village for entertainment purposes would be willing to pay $3-4 extra dollars to park.

What do you think of the idea though? Do you support this possibile initiative to help bring in more parking? Or do you have a different idea? Talk about it in the Poll and Comments section below.