Charging for Downtown Wichita Falls Parking Slammed as Terrible Idea

If you haven't seen the numerous social media posts yet, let me be the one to break the bad news to you. You know how one of the major positives of hanging out in Downtown Wichita Falls is the free parking?

Welp, you can kiss that goodbye. In a move that has left downtown business owners scratching their collective heads, the owner of two of the most used parking lots in downtown has decided right now is the time to start treating the area as if it were DFW and charging for parking. At a time when so many people are struggling to afford groceries and pay their bills, you can now look forward to shelling out money to go to all the free, family-friendly events downtown.

Wichita Falls Residents Slam Paid Parking

Did you enjoy the free concerts put on at Bud Daniels Park by the Parks and Recreation department? How about the Artwalks? It will cost you money now. By the way, take a look at this video of the condition of the parking lot next to The Broken Tap.

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Much of the anger online was aimed at how poorly these parking lots have been maintained over the years. If you've ever parked in either of these lots, you know what I'm talking about. Many have raised concerns that these parking lots might not even be ADA-compliant. I don't know if that is true or not, but it would be really hard to navigate all those potholes in a wheelchair.

As someone says in the picture above, this is private property, so the owner can charge for parking if they want, and apparently, they got busy early this morning working on fixing up the lots, as you can see in the video below.

Wichita Falls isn’t Dallas or Fort Worth, and shouldn’t adopt practices that might drive people away from its more modest but growing downtown core. To many, the idea of paid parking represents a step backward in creating a welcoming environment.