WPCNR STREETS OF WHITE PLAINS. By John F. Bailey. August 9, 2004: Parking is not as free on Sundays in White Plains as residents and visitors may think it is, even though the Common Council has reversed itself reinstituting Free on-street parking on Sundays. What the Council failed to make clear was they will still require you to insert quarters into parking meters in muncipal off-street lots, according to the Department of Parking today.
The Council did not go out of its way to point out that the ordinance they passed last week restoring free on-street parking throughout the city only applied to parking meters on the street. Previously, parking was free at metered municipal openair lots, such as behind the popular football bars along Mamaroneck Avenue.
All NFL-lovers should be aware they should bring plenty of quarters if they expect to hang at Dooley Mac's, The Thirsty Turtle and other popular football hangouts on Sunday. Patrons of restaurants along Mamaroneck will have to still bring plenty of quarters to feed meters in the open lots that will still be in effect 9 AM to 9 P.M.
The city fathers did not make it clear that the meters in open parking lots were not affected by their rollback legislation regarding Sunday "On Street" Parking. It fooled the CitizeNetReporter.
The meters in the lots, according to the Department of Parking will be enforced 9 AM to 9 P.M. on Sundays. WPCNR erred in not asking the question because the measure was touted to us as "going back to the way it was before." Well, the new ordinance in no way returns it to the "way it was before," it simply restores free parking on the street meters, a far smaller percentage of meters than in the parking lots which remain requiring coins, and may confuse patrons.
When the Common Council flip-flopped on city parking hours last week, by bringing back Free Parking in White Plains at on-street meters, they were not going back all the way to Free Parking on Sunday as it was, when you could park in any metered lot free and the meters read "Except Sundays."
