We, the undersigned, petition Asheville City Council and Asheville Parking Services to come up with a solution for discounted parking for employees in downtown Asheville.

The City of Asheville relies on the businesses downtown for it's revenue brought in by tourism therefore it relies on the workers to help keep this revenue flowing.  Many of the workers in the downtown district are part-time or gig workers that make either minimum wage, living wage or rely on tips for their wages.  Since many of us travel by car to our jobs we have to rely on parking garages, lots and street parking as part of our work routine.  This can add up fast at some of the hourly rate parking spots.  Many of us that work in restaurants or for caterers never know when our shifts are going to end and have to guess on how much money to pay at the lots and we end up paying more out of fear of getting a ticket if our shift is longer then we expected.  We end up spending at least our first hour of pay if not more on parking and that shouldn't have to be.

We would like to propose a parking code that gives us a discount or a fixed rate for downtown employees that don't benefit from a monthly pass because we don't work a typical work week.  Even a "pay per parking" pass that we pay for ahead of time like the monthly pass but we can use over several months per parking experience.  We're not expecting free parking but reasonably priced parking.  This solution will help relieve some financial stress on the workers but still bring in revenue from the parking services for the City.