Broken Meters Deter Business Patrons

For over eighteen years, I have been a patron of many of the small businesses that make up Tarrytown.  The metered parking situation was never ideal, but the quality of the local businesses made up for that.  However, the parking situation is now coming to a point where it is dissuading me from shopping and dining at the village’s local establishments.

It seems that recently Tarrytown has a plethora of broken meters, and that the current policy is to ticket cars that are at broken meters.  The last three times I was in Tarrytown I found a broken meter where I parked; today, I had to park at four different meters till I found one that was unbroken.  In addition to the completely broken meters, there are also a number of meters that will only accept one or two coins and then “shut down,” so that it is impossible to add quarters to get the needed time.  Quite frankly, I can’t afford the time it takes to find several parking spaces and then get out of the car to check if the meter works.  To have this many broken meters, and then tell drivers to simply “park elsewhere” is ridiculous when we all know how hard it is to get a metered parking space in Tarrytown.  

I enjoy supporting businesses where the owner and I know each other, where the workers know my unique needs, and where there is camaraderie and caring that extends beyond the shops and into the community.  That’s what you have here at Tarrytown, and I hope that this parking problem won’t continue and therefore force me and others to spend our dollars elsewhere.