Free parking in downtown Greensboro has been shrinking for years, but the latest move by the City of Greensboro makes it worse – much more of what used to be easy, free parking is about to cost you money.
The city, playing the Grinch, announced just before Christmas that several downtown surface parking lots will become paid parking beginning in 2026. This is in keeping with recommendations from the City of Greensboro’s Downtown Parking Plan that was created in 2024.
The affected lots include the Elm/Greene, Elm/McGee and Elm/MLK paved lots, along with the South Elm gravel lot.
Under the new parking world order in downtown, the South Elm gravel lot will cost $3 per day, while all paved city surface lots will cost $2 per hour – in some cases that’s an increase of 50 cents an hour from current rates.
Payment will be required for parking Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Parking will remain free after 6 p.m. and on weekends.
Also, payment will no longer be coin based. Instead, drivers will have to use the ParkMobile app or pay by phone as the city continues its move away from traditional coin-based meters.
For people without smartphones – or for those who simply don’t want yet another app on their phone – that change alone will be something a headache: What used to require a handful of quarters now requires a phone, an account and a reliable data connection.
City officials say that the goal is to improve parking efficiency and increase turnover in high-demand areas. However, many downtown visitors are likely to experience it as one more obstacle in an area that’s already become increasingly difficult to park in. Many people dread going downtown during the day due to the scarcity of parking.
That difficulty has been building for years. Downtown Greensboro has added apartments, offices and restaurants, while the supply of easy surface parking has steadily declined. Longtime free lots have disappeared; street parking has become more tightly regulated and enforcement has grown more aggressive.
The situation worsened this year when the Bellemeade Street Parking Deck in downtown Greensboro was closed after structural problems were discovered, abruptly removing hundreds of parking spaces from the system. That closure pushed more cars into already crowded surface lots and made finding parking downtown a daily frustration for workers, residents and visitors alike.
The vast about of road repairs, construction and renovation projects going on downtown have also eaten up available parking.
Parking enforcement in the newly paid lots will begin on Friday, Jan. 2 – with officers initially focusing on education as the new rules roll out.
City officials stated that anyone with questions – or those interested in monthly parking – should contact the City of Greensboro Parking Operations office.
Downtown Greensboro has spent years trying to attract people back to the city center. Restaurants, events and housing have all helped. However, parking remains one of downtown’s most persistent and acute problems.
.
If City Officials really wanted to “improve parking efficiency” they’d implement a simpler, faster, easier way to pay for parking – by dropping a quarter into a meter. Right?
No, this is another example of the war on motorists being waged by liberals. The anti-car bureaucrats bleat about making Greensboro “Car Optional”.
– – Translation : “We’re going to try to force you onto public transportation, by making car use impossible”.
Dropping a quarter without a doubt is the simplest method, but I do see the city’s problem. I am old, grew up with parking meters that would even take nickels. But, over the years, I have gradually kept less and less cash or change on me and use my credit card most of the time. No change from cash transactions means no money in the cup holder in the car. My kids and grandkids prefer to run their entire lives off of their phones, just swiping their phones anywhere and everywhere. I will never do that. But thinking about it, I expect there are many more phone swipers downtown now and far fewer with change in the cup holder.
I think it would be best not to set this up fully dependent on phones…..but looking around me, I would say the vast majority disagree. So, like you, I will forgo trips downtown unless it’s after 6:00 or on a weekend, I at all possible. Honestly, I already do as much as I can away from downtown anyway.
I dislike having only the oprion of either not doing something or using non cash options. Seems like everything is being designed tone “cashless” . All cashless options are subject to identity theft and allowing banks to limit access
right!
Look at you… I know that name. A great gpd officer..
Al, not only is Greensboro screwing up parking, its official red light cameras are coming back this year. The contract has been signed to install the first 5 with more to come later
.
Yep. Just a cash cow. Rear end collisions at these intersections will skyrocket – but they’ll bury that fact.
Greensboro will screw up Greensboro.
PS
I used to stop at Grey’s Tavern, but then they blocked off the parking spots outside with huge blocky brick-like things.
So I don’t stop there any more.
Maybe there is a mall God that is offering a way that 4 seasons mall will become viable at least in having free parking, now if they can just keep good stores operating in the mall.
I avoid downtown for many reasons. The library has become a homeless shelter, the construction and one way streets make navigation almost impossible, and I see no businesses that would draw me there anyway. Gone are all the iconic retailers. Replaced with beer joints and nightclubs where you may not be safe.
I’m sorry but I am an old person, and I can’t carry my grandson around with me all the time to show me how to use an ap on my phone to pay for parking. I need an old-fashioned parking meter. Hello!
The county and city governments should be required to provide free parking for anyone doing government business regardless of the reason. No one should be required to pay for parking to use government services, period! Either free parking is provided or the cost of parking is reimbursed.
Making parking to technological is a disaster and extremely counterproductive; make it easy and not too costly.
Sounds very unwelcoming to me. There is really no reason to shop or eat downtown if I have to pay to park. Even more insulting is if I need to go to the police department I have to feed the meters. Its just another money grab from Greensboro.
how often do you ‘need to go’ to the police dept ? why ?
Could it be another move to make cash completely obsolete and force people to digital currency?? Are they trying to get people to stop going downtown AGAIN?
——————————
They’re definitely trying to abolish cash.
CASH = PRIVACY + FREEDOM
DIGITAL = SURVEILLANCE + CONTROL
austin, ‘surveillance + control’ is necessary for both sides of most transactions. buying anything from a stranger creates shared information about both – what u have & what they had & where you were etc. paranoia will destroy ya
———
Sorry buddy, but surveillance of my transaction, and potential control of my funds is absolutely NOT necessary when using cash.
The vendor got paid with certainty, and has no need to know my identity or anything else about me.
My privacy is an element of my freedom.
ethical traders in fiat or fungible ‘assets’ such as banks have a duty to know where the $ came from & where it’s going because they ‘enable’ the transaction. private & guvmnt ‘entities’ ‘follow the money’ for good reason as do i.
No, they have no duty to know where my money came from.
It is none of their business.
Your sparkl sputterd. Digital currency means total control of everyone by Big Brother.
A peaceful trucker strike and protest in Canada last year or so ago resulted in mass arrests, and the govt freezing of bank accounts of most of the protesters across the country. Canada has no Bill of Rights.
So, with digital currency, If the govt doesn’t like anything about what you are doing (such as criticizing the govt), they can freeze all your digital access. Can you say “China”?
——————
Miler is absolutely correct. The Left wing Prime Minister (Trudeau) froze the bank accounts of the protesters by executive fiat, making their debit cards worthless and their cheques useless.
ONLY CASH STILL WORKED.
This example tells you the goal of the Globalist Left : to abolish cash completely, so as to establish complete control of your money, and you.
we have ‘civil forfeiture’ occurring which proves that ‘bills of rights’ are nothing but lies by politician/community ‘activist’/cat herders. when have u or i gotten a vote for anything substantial like going to war? department of DEFENSE is another lie in our ‘doublespeak’ culture.
When I pay cash it’s never “declined”.
Yeah, and you didn’t run up a credit card bill for something you can’t afford.
Peple hate to pay for parking when they are shopping or eating out. Businesses in downtown compete with businesses in the suburbs — where parking is free. When the city made parking downtown free decades ago, downtown flourished. Making people pay for parking will reverse that trend. Government bureaucrats don’t care about that, but elected city officials should. If elected city officials want downtown to continue to thrive, they need to put a stop to the myopic plans of the bureaucrats.
people hate to pay for EVERYTHING . since when is anyone entitled to park RV etc in the most expensive, high demand, real-estate in our high $$ City/County ? carry your parking spot around with you. move & live closer to your stuff – our nursing homes will facilitate that for us
Markl Either you have access to really good dopeor your head is in a constant fog. Are you and Chris related
.
Both Democrats, Will. Enough said.
i am unaffiliated. neither ‘mutt’ jeff’ or ‘wack’ resonate with me
everyone is related – the ‘gene pool’ is wide & deep
i have ‘ really good dopeor’ want some ?
parking in dense/urban is more costly than suburb parking. your ‘parking spot’ IS PUT to better use as something else downtown. why does it take ~5k#s of loud, tailpipe stinking, oil/coolant dripping machinery to get you from point A to B when i get it done with a 30# bike & a bellyful of fajitas n beer. your lifestyle is toxic to us.
Pathetic how lazy people have gotten these days. Can`t peddle a bike anymore–it has to be electric. Can`t use your own power to ride a scooter–it has to be electric. Now, unless the parking is right at where you are going, you grumble about the cost of parking. Whenever I attend an event downtown in the daytime, I park a First Presbyterian Church and walk, and I`m in my late 60s. If I were to attend Tanger, there is a gravel lot near the Children`s Museum, not to mention the parking for the Greensboro Museum, but this entails walking. Get in shape, Greensboro, and stop grousing!
Pathetic how some people think you peddle bicycles – unless you’re a bicycle salesman.
And spare us your condescension, Fitness Man! My father was continually told by his peers that he needed to get in shape and lose weight. He went to all of their funerals.
Really.
he murdered them in anger/spite ?
Not everyone has the physical ability to do the walking.
our modern tech ‘let your fingers do the walking’ & supply chains bring material & ‘help’ to us. replace ‘walking’ with ‘rolling’ using ~15# ‘bike’. i am carried around on a palanquin by my harem
we had to build @ > $ a double wide sidewalk where there already was a sidewalk because > greensboro citizens are obese – called ‘greenway’ – in reality more not green concrete.
if you are an engineer first name john, we fixed your plumbing 30+ya
Everything you could possibly want is in one f the malls, so why go downtown? So I don’t!
who wants a sea of vehicles, parking lots downtown ? who wants a flood of loud, trash ejecting, rubbernecking, tailpipe stinking motorists just ‘cruising’ around killing time etc ? suburb shopping is great because it puts stuff closer to where consumers work/live.
or online with door delivery. add porn ? porn is not evodevo because it doesn’t cook ?
A mess……GREENSBORO IS POORLY OPERATED
The one statement “people do not want more apps” is spot on. We used to go to the Mast Store in Winston Salem. We would usually go there for unique Holiday gifts and other times throughout the year, but since WS adopted their “ parking with app only”, we no longer visit that city. Greensboro is no better.
If the city is serious about growing downtown business, it has to make it easy for people to come downtown. Charging more for fewer parking spaces does the opposite.
Downtown retail and restaurants do not compete with other downtowns. They compete with shopping centers and mixed-use developments where parking is simple and free. When families, older residents, or casual visitors weigh where to eat or shop, parking friction matters. A two-dollar-an-hour fee, an app requirement, and the risk of a ticket all send a clear signal to take their business elsewhere.
Free or validated parking during business hours is not a giveaway. It is an economic development tool. Many thriving downtowns use free first-hour parking, merchant validation, or city-subsidized surface lots to support small businesses while still managing turnover. Greensboro seems to be moving in the opposite direction at a time when parking supply is already strained by construction and the loss of the Bellemeade deck.
Efficiency and turnover are reasonable goals, but they should not come at the expense of accessibility. If downtown is going to grow, the city should prioritize welcoming customers first and balance parking revenue later. Without easy parking, all the apartments, plans, and studies in the world will not keep downtown storefronts full.
another strategy resembles our bigger cities where there is NO PARKING next to destinations. where you arrive @ destination door & step out of a rideshare or cab with no walking & no expensive parking real estate necessary
.
Yuck ! No way.
Lol…another SNAFU by the city and its brain trust. Another reason to stay away from downtown Greensboro.
Current City and County leadership is hellbent on turning Greensboro into a walk about City, and the double edged sword comes with more money for Government. Are they taking a page from the Gavin Newsome “how to increase revenue and use it for pet projects “?
——
Where is Little Bryan on this ???
You know, the head man at Downtown Greensboro Incorporated, who just lost his re-election attempt. He prefers to go by Zack (Matheny).
Is he in favor of hiking up parking fees? Is he in favor of making it impossible to find a parking place downtown if you don’t have a smartphone?
I have a 20 year old Nokia flip phone that I love. I wouldn’t know how to begin to pay for a parking place… if I can’t drop a coin in a meter.
Eff Downtown. I’ll go elsewhere.
I do not like using parking apps because of security. I had to use one several years ago called ParkMobile and was involved in a data breach involving over 20 million users. No thanks!
It’s interesting how the article states that the city will aggressively enforce parking in these lots. Could they aggressively enforce speeding on our streets?
Spot on Duane. When is the last time ANYONE saw a Greensboro police officer pull ANYONE for speeding or any other traffic offense?
Our lives are in danger because the City wants to protect minorities from police interactions at all cost.
The far left liberal African American voting bloc will seek to maintain complete control of government by making sure those 10,000 new homes are occupied by minorities.
BINGO. Also, include the county clowns that waste your tax dollars. It’s the same voting block.
Thomas J. If you want to see what the black community is really trying to do, pull up the on line story about the NAACP’s lawsuit against Summerfield. What total nonsense
Our country has gone to he&&.
Happy New Year Scott. Start the year off right and do a story about this off the wall lawsuit. I read the story yesterday in the paper
Northwest Observer.
Try North Myrtle beach. $4/hr parking meters line Ocean blvd, access parking lots, & side streets. Imagine living in Tabor City, Loris, or Conway; taking the family for a day at NMB beaches. Include me out. I no longer visit this place.
This local TAX is another attack residents, and especially merchants. What business is dumb enough to open a retail store or restaurant? Other than going to court, nah going.
After WWII, GSO was a mecca for locals. People swarmed in from the boonies to see all the merchants lining the streets, oodles of places to dine or grab a bite. You could actually smell the food from Mr. Peanut, or Krystal burgers @10c each, etc. I remember five movie theaters. My parents worked downtown from 1949 on. On Saturdays, my dad would bring home a bag of hot dogs (10c @) for dinner. A great place to be then.
Nothing stays the same. There are other great places to visit, just in NC alone. Although I was raised here, I was lucky enough to find a place in Randolph County.
Happy new year everyone.
Back in the 70s the city council wanted to “revitalize” downtown. So the eliminated parking on Elm Street and widened the sidewalks. The main shopping stores seeing less traffic due to the new shopping experience “the Mall”. The smaller shops had to close since customers were not drawn to the downtown area to the big stores and soon all was left were the office buildings where employees had to pay for parking in the “new” parking decks. Soon the Buisness abandoned their downtown offices and moved to corporate centers with plenty of parking for customers and employees.
Eventually some small stores lowered their rent and small eclectic stores were able to afford the “revitilazed” downtown. The city was able to clean up the “sketchy” areas like Hamburger Square. This attracted new places like Natty Greens, McCouls. The city also “cleaned up” the south side of Elm and this attracted more independent shops and restaurants to open.
Now the City is attracting the homeless (excuse me “unhoused” by opening up shelters and rehab centers. This is driving off businesses because their customers don’t want to go downtown, where parking is limited and potentially unsafe areas.
I think the City should rethink their current plans for downtown. Look back at the thing they did wrong 50 years ago and the thing they did right. Correct their mistakes and improve on the things they did right.
Down town businesses don’t need 20 foot sidewalks, add back the street parking along Elm and make it free. All the down town businesses will get more customers, and customers will enjoy the convenience of parking where the shop or dine.
Hopefully the City will rethink their current plan. Eleminatjng paid parking will help attract Buisness customers and help those businesses downtown.
imagine the traffic/parking congestion downtown if all the malls & suburban shopping centers didn’t exist but we still had 300k+ people ? visit our downtown sans vehicle & forget the hassle of parking !
John, I understand your premise, but you give the city too way too much credit when you say it “cleaned up” South Elm. We, the entrepreneurs who have invested our own money rehabbing buildings and establishing businesses there have cleaned up South Elm.
thnx i live closeby
Free parking everywhere would solve the problem and even increase traffic flow to increase business.
————–
And we could fire The Parking Police and sell all the meters! I bet the City would come out ahead.
But that’s not the point. Their goal is to make using the private automobile as costly, frustrating, time consuming, and difficult as possible. They call it “Vision Zero”, and they are dead serious about destroying our physical freedom.
Politicians in Scotland are already talking about legally limiting how many kilometres you’re allowed to drive annually.
so free parking is everywhere downtown with high speed one way 4 lane roads to it: got room for buildings? compare the footprint of walmart buildings to the footprint of its parking & duplicate that in our downtown ?
Other than the Carolina Theater, and the Tanger Center, what does downtown Greensboro offer a family? The last time my wife and I went downtown,(during daylight), the park around Lincoln was full of homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks, walking against traffic on a one way street and NOWHERE to park to do government business. We moved to Greensboro forty years ago because it was, yes, was, a lovely, progressive city in all areas. Now, there’s one really safe area to shop, and each quarter of the city is disintegrating faster than you can put a store out of business. The average speed on city streets is 50 mph (Friendly) and ah, the wafting smell of Marijuana permeates every area of town. We have a defunct police department and a city government that loves their wallets more than their constituents. I’m retired, but for reasons beyond my control, I cannot move. So, I vote, hoping that this vote will make a difference. But, alas, it’s a merry go round. Nothing ever changes. It just gets worse. Yes, I’ve just described a Democratically run city. We will look like Detroit in the next twenty (maybe sooner) years. Good luck to the young folks. Maybe they can change the course.
i live downtown; walk n bike efficiently, quickly, everywhere downtown & don’t give parking a thought. many excellent shopping centers are ~one mile away in suburbs – easy walk/bike – no parking, no mechanic, no gas, no cop, no vehicle tax. my travel is my exercise, food is my fuel & i can afford the best. i live in Phat City !
————
Good for you! But don’t you dare to impose your bicycle/no car/no freedom lifestyle on the rest of us.
Hope you enjoy your limited horizons. Your life is what the Globalist Left wants to impose on us all, with its “15 Minute Cities” and abolition of the private automobile.
Not for me, thanks.
My wife and I recently decided to give Mellow Mushroom downtown a try. Even with the limited free parking available on Elm street it turned into a frustrating experience. Back and forth looking for a parking spot until we lucked out and found one. I am certainly not against exercise as I walk 4-6 miles several times a week for my health. But on this evening it was raining and we needed to park fairly close. This was our final visit to downtown restaurants . It’s just too much of a hassle when there so many other places to eat that supply ample parking for free to there patrons. Lifelong resident who can’t wait to move. Are the parking decks really unsafe and ready to fall down, or are we paying to have lots cleared for more development to line the pockets?
———-
I also wonder about the demolition of that large car park, Jeff (Bellemeade). It wasn’t very old but they claimed it was about to collapse. I think they just have the private automobile in their cross hairs, and are waging an undeclared war on it.
The Left in Europe is much further ahead in this, as they physically block streets (Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, LTNs), impose absurdly low 20mph speed limits, and have an arsenal of “Gotcha” motorist laws that are designed to make driving as costly, frustrating, slow, and inefficient as they can.
They hate our cars.
. . . & americans are FLOCKING there to vacation/retire for that lifestyle. put your horsepower on the track with richard petty & go round n round in circles until u crash for my entertainment.
———-
The UK lost more millionaires in 2024 than any other country in the World, as they emigrated en masse.
. . . & now live in rv’s in walmart parking lots around the world
If you think millionaires live in Wal-Mart parking lots, you’re even more mentally ill than I suspected.
Go see a shrink, mate.
how many wealthy americans moved to UK or visited, & stayed how long ? ireland has surpassed UK as a retirement destination because . . . . THE IRISH are there !
& they had them to lose because of UK’s superior? culture & edu. not genetics? military ? irish component ?
Markl you are really smoking some good dope
Richard Petty has not driven a race car since
1992. Get a life.
just kidding. he has a charity that uses horse horsepower used by ‘special’ kids. go richard ! bring me some moonshine by horse !
there is no ‘ample parking for free’. parking lots cost $$ that we compensate thru our purchases. because urban real estate is $$, vast parking lots (with > walking) have to be in the $ suburbs.
Tubbyway?
If they go back to marking tires, there’s already case law on that practice. Marking tires is effectively the same as placing a tracking device on a vehicle. You can’t track someone’s movements without probable cause or a warrant issued by a judge. There’s no real difference—once they start marking your tires, they’re tracking your vehicle, plain and simple.
what happens next ? the tire is tracked . . . THEN !!! OMG ( this is as religious as i get )
————–
DEAFENING SILENCE !
DEAFENING SILENCE !
Er… so…. there is an organization that professes that its raison d’etre is to promote downtown, its vitality, its accessibility, its economy. Maybe I’m an idiot but it seems to me that making the already very limited parking in downtown even more costly and difficult and inaccessible might not be a good idea.
So what does the head of Downtown Greensboro Incorporated have to day about this??
Or is he just hiding in the shadows, like a scared little wanker?
* * *
Al is right about the Left’s war on cars. In Lewisham in Southeast London, the leftist local council have laid down raised bumps in the road because they’re trying to prevent people exceeding THE TWENTY MILES PER HOUR Speed Limit! 20mph!
Worse yet, the “sleeping policemen” as they call them, are set high enough to damage the underside of many passenger cars. This has become a national story in the UK – all because of the hatred, spite and resentment the Left bears towards the private automobile.
Watch the Democrats ratchet up their war on our cars – and fight them at every turn. Fight! Fight! Fight!
there are many locations where a 20mph speed limit is appropriate & the ‘speed bumps’ are necessary because of scofflaws.
Rubbish !
[ Says the man whose transportation devices consist of… a bicycle. ]
take a look @ the wreckage left by the three vehicle collision @ smith/n spring st intersection thursday afternoon. i can tell 911 where collisions just occurred while sitting in my house from experience!
————-
And, in the “you can’t make this up” category, the Tandridge District Council in Surrey, England has introduced a 100 Pound ( $130) fine for motorists who…. blow their horn.
They will not stop at anything to harass us in our cars.
The UK is yet another place I will never visit, never spend a dime (or a pound) there. I love(d) Canada, from NS to NB, and many places in between. No more.