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Light Rain Parking meters changed in Lynbrook
A quarter now gets half hour instead of full hour
If you have taken a casual stroll down some of Lynbrook’s streets like Atlantic Avenue, you may have noticed more people who not only want to beat the heat, but beat up the parking meters. With a village-wide raise at the meters from a quarter per hour to a quarter per half hour, many are stuck in parking limbo, which they have to feed the meter more of their time and money.
“I think a quarter should [get you] 2 hours,” said Douglas Fisher, a Lynbrook resident. “It is annoying having to put more quarters in the meter. It is hard to not get a ticket.”
In an effort to dodge tickets, some residents constantly check the meters to make sure they are safe while shopping, strolling, or enjoying the outdoors. For others, they park in large municipal parking lots like one on Atlantic Avenue, which has about a few hundred spots behind many of the stores, which shoppers have easy access to the stores for more convenience. But some find the street meters there to be a inconvenience, and even some merchants are unsure about it.
“Do they want to deter people from shopping,” said Bruce Levitt, co-owner of MurLee’s Menswear in Lynbrook. “What shopping can you do in a half hour? My average customer spends more than an half hour in my store.”
According to Village Administrator John Giordano, the village notified the public of the meter change by putting stickers on every parking meter about a few months ago. Giordano said that the village wide change with the parking meters was discussed at a village board meeting in March. “We wanted to be on par with neighboring communities with the meters because our meters have not been changed in quite some time.”
But Levitt wonders about whether non-residents who visit Lynbrook know about the new parking rule.
“What about all the non-local people, people who come from East Rockaway, Rockville Centre, Woodmere, and [people] who come here from all over,” Levitt said.
But whether residents or non-residents, the meters state that quarters are only taken for a two hour limit — and people can even get five free minutes on the meters just by pressing a button.
