Last summer, I walked to downtown East Lansing with my boyfriend on a beautiful fall day. We decided to pop into a small sports bar on Grand River that I’d never seen before. We enjoyed a couple beers and a plate of salty fries; the atmosphere in the bar was bustling and convivial, patrons bonding over an NFL game and heckling each other in good spirits.

A week later, we walked down the same stretch of Grand River. The doors were dark – the bar was gone.

Given the high turnover that East Lansing’s main drag has seen over the past couple decades (anyone out there old enough to remember when there was a Taco Bell next door to another Taco Bell?*) I shouldn’t have been surprised. But in the year following the day we found that bar closed, it seems the EL scene has only grown worse. I drove down Grand River recently and was shocked to see how rapidly the number of empty storefronts, with their dark, ominous windows, has multiplied. I was despondent. I want to see this city thrive, and I want other people to cherish it as much as I do.

Which is why I groaned as I read the following headline last month:

East Lansing Extends Parking Meter Hours to 3 a.m.

One of my friends on Facebook had posted the article and written underneath, “East Lansing really seems to hate its residents.”

What in the name of Taco Bell was the East Lansing City Council thinking? Didn’t they see this was going to hurt business and foster resentment from the community? Although my gut reaction was to initiate rabble rousing, I decided that I’d do a little sleuthing before I jumped to conclusions; I’m not an urban planner, after all.

According to news sources, the need for extended hours stems from East Lansing’s Automobile Parking System budget coming up significantly short this year. The goal is for the parking department to be self-sustaining, i.e. funding its upkeep expenses from its own revenue. A note in East Lansing’s budget states that, “the Parking Fund has been struggling to get into a position of positive working capital… largely due to the amount of debt associated with the system.” East Lansing isn’t making as much money from parking, and the APS doesn’t have any reserve funds for major reconstruction needs.

So the short answer is this: your quarters in the meter will be chipping away at a whopping 6+ million dollar debt the APS has taken on as part of a 5-year plan to upgrade parking infrastructure in the city. The first steps are a major makeover of the MAC parking garage and an upgrade for the meters (they now take credit cards). The APS is anticipating an additional revenue of 75,000 dollars next year, assuming that 80% of people who parked at the meters before the hours changed will still park there after they have to pay for possibly 9 addition hours of parking.

Quick poll: how many of you, especially you students, are still going to park at the meters now that they run until 3 a.m.?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Even assuming their optimistic estimation is correct, chipping away at a nearly 7 million dollar bill with a revenue increase of 75,000 is going to be a slow, laborious process.

You might be thinking, what about the revenue from parking tickets? Anyone who has lived in East Lansing has seen PACE (Parking and Code Enforcement) trucks prowling the streets. Their methods seem downright predatory; it often feels that they hide in bushes and stalk you, pouncing on your car the second your meter runs dry. As it turns out, parking enforcement and the APS are under different department umbrellas. Still, wouldn’t it make sense to funnel some of the profit from parking fines into the parking department? Indeed, this has evidently been practice in the past. In 2015, the APS siphoned 270,980 dollars from the parking citation fund. That number was reduced to less than half that number for 2016, and for 2017, the projection is zero dollars. Why East Lansing is weaning the parking system off of citation funds is unclear.

The simple problem is that East Lansing is struggling financially. The parking system isn’t making as much money, Grand River is increasingly vacant, the business scene is increasingly unstable, and now, parking is even more expensive. Here’s a proposal: instead of investing in parking infrastructure first,let’s invest more in the DDA (Downtown Development Agency) including funds from parking citations and make East Lansing more of a scene that will generate more visitors and more income for the parking system over time.

Do you know how much less residents would hate getting a ticket if they knew that money was going into making our city a more attractive place to visit? More greenspace, benches, more independent businesses, street art, attractive housing, big sidewalks, and big bike lanes. I assume (and hope) that the expensive overhaul of the MAC garage is structurally necessary, but if it isn’t a pressing issue, it shouldn’t be our priority; concerning the meters, I’ve never heard someone talk about a town favorably because their parking meters were so shiny and new. The East Lansing City Council budget claims that “other municipalities that have made this adjustment already are Birmingham, Detroit, Ferndale, Rochester and Royal Oak. Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo are attempting to do the same.” But East Lansing does not have the established aura and public transportation of Detroit;** it doesn’t have nearly the swanky scene as Ferndale. Some of the best cities are difficult to park in, but no one cares, because they consider visiting the city to be well worth the expense. What we need to work on most is our image and the opportunities we provide East Lansing patrons.

Aside from the profound economic downturn wreaking havoc on downtown EL’s economy, there’s another elephant in the room we must discuss: the increasing amount of development far away from campus. Mega-complexes like Chandler’s Crossing and The Lodges are luring students away from campus, accommodating for EL’s less-than-spectacular public transportation services by supplying their own shuttle system. These far-flung fiefdoms are building restaurants, bars and stores of their own. While I consider it a good thing that there are more locations where students can live and work, I still don’t want to see our downtown atrophy as a result of it.

It’s hardly surprising that students are spreading farther out in search of greener pastures. It’s no secret that East Lansing proper has not always had a harmonious relationship with its student population; this is an issue we need to address if we want a thriving downtown. It can’t be easy as a real adult having neighbors who trample their lawn every Football Saturday holding signs that say You Honk, We Drink! Students, meanwhile, end up feeling constricted and judged. But at the end of the day, East Lansing without MSU would just be a cow town next to the state capitol. We’ll never be New York City, but at least the university brings in diversity and education and makes us a more cosmopolitan cow town with fun social scenes and delicious international food. Excuse me for being blunt, but if you don’t want to integrate with college students, you chose the wrong neighborhood. Students have been squatting here since MSU was founded in 1855 – we got here first. If you want East Lansing to blossom, you need to make students feel welcome.

In addition to the tension between EL residents and students, renting can be a serious hassle. Codes are fairly rigid and often favor families over students; I’ve heard students and landlords both gripe about a situation where a four-bedroom home can only be rented out to two people, unless the additional tenants are children of the adults (many of those student tenants have considered adopting one another to get around this barrier; alas, a solution with far too many complications). The result for students is paying twice the rent money for empty space. There must be a happy medium in adjusting codes so that all these bedrooms can be filled while keeping students safe.

Now that I’ve read up on the issue, I at least understand the impetus behind extending the meter hours. But the articles I’ve read prior to my in-depth investigation failed to mention the 5-year plan the parking system has adopted. Tim Dempsey, East Lansing director of planning, building and development, also refers to the desire for metered spots to reflect the same hours and fees as the parking garages.

Joe Bell, co-owner of The Peanut Barrel, mentioned this as well: “There is a desire by the city to keep student storage parking off the streets and out of the surface lots…I have been told the ultimate goal is to steer the parking into the parking garages. They have the cheapest rates.” The city’s push to get residents parked into the garages and off the streets is, to me, unclear. This brings us to our last point: if the city is going to increase parking fees, there should be a more thorough explanation as to why. Most of us don't have the time to dig through the budget and would still like to know what the city's game plan is behind making this change.

“What’s really the problem is the perception of the price increase,” says Michael Krueger, the owner of Crunchy’s. Krueger is a member of the Downtown Management Board and the East Lansing Responsible Hospitality Council, and lobbied against the new parking hours. Acknowledging the budget deficit, he and several other members of the DMB urged the city council to extend the hours to 9 p.m. instead of 3 a.m. as a compromise, but didn’t win their bid.

Truth be told, the metered spots only account for 220 of nearly 2,500 parking spots; it hardly seems worth crying over. And yet, once you factor in carpooling, that could easily be a half a thousand patrons relying on free meters on a busy Friday night. Regardless of how big or small the adjustment is, perception matters, and right now, patrons feel betrayed.

This is evident in how customers have reacted in recent weeks.

“I’ve had customers tell me they’re never coming to Crunchy’s again, and telling me they’re taking their business to Haslett or downtown Lansing,” says Krueger.

When asked how he thought the new parking hours would affect business, Krueger said results will vary. Crunchy’s is fortunate in that the parking spots nearest them along Valley Court were spared, the reason provided from Dempsey being that there is no nearby parking garage as an alternative option. However, it’s entirely possible that patrons will park their cars there to save money and sneak away to take their patronage elsewhere, so whether his business will benefit from cheaper parking is unclear.

Joe Bell is confident The Peanut Barrel will weather the change, although he – not the city – will take on the onus of making sure that transition runs smoothly.

“There are about a dozen street parking meters near The Peanut Barrel. The effect of extending hours on the meters is ‘not so much’ for us. Perhaps other businesses that rely on street parking are feeling more pressure.”

“The difficult part of the parking changes for The Peanut Barrel has been an unusually steep price increase ($1.00 for 30 minutes, up from 75 cents) in the surface lots. Very few of my customers will go the extra block (to the Division Street Garage) to save on parking. They are complaining. Ultimately, if we don't react in a positive manner, our traffic will drop.”

Bell notes that The Peanut Barrel already validates parking, and hopes to increase participation by making this fact household knowledge. However, with the increased lot rates, they’ll be required to accommodate by price increases for food and beverages – and that comes with its own set of complications.

I, for one, can’t help but feel like sour grapes about the new meter hours. Sure, it’s ostensibly only a matter of dollars and cents, but to college students and young people, that expense takes a big gouge out of their modest budgets. And this small issue is embedded in a bigger, deeper, scarier issue: what is East Lansing going to look like in a decade? You’re going to have a hard time convincing me that the way to strengthen EL’s business economy is by investing in parking first.

Whether or not the new parking laws end up boosting the local economy or weakening it, whether customer threats to take business elsewhere actually come to fruition, one thing is obvious: the public is unhappy. This gesture has made residents feel colder toward their hometown – and as a frequenter of East Lansing and a Spartan, that breaks my heart.

*No, the two Taco Bells were never open and operating simultaneously, but there was a hot minute there – unless my young memory serves me incorrectly – in which the signage for the old Taco Bell was still present after the new one had set up shop next door, thus creating the illusion of neighboring Taco Bells

**I’ve been informed that my perception of Detroit’s public transit system being superior to East Lansing’s is delusional. My bad – I just got a little too excited by that People Mover thing downtown