The next time you park on the street in downtown Niagara Falls it will cost you $3.
Niagara Falls added the meters in an effort to boost local business. The hope is that new customers will continuously park in front of businesses instead of someone using up the spot all day.
While some people say it's a good idea and great deal compared to all the expensive private lots, others say $3 an hour is steep.
"It could be a deterrent if I was coming down regularly," Allen Stewart, who was visiting from Fort Erie, said. "It might restrict the number of times I came down because if I'm going to have to pay $3 to $6 every time I park here it does add up."
Noam Pines made the trip to the falls with a few friends and was only staying downtown for two hours, so he said deciding where to park was easy.
"I guess that's fair considering a minute from here you pay $20."
In total, the city added 33 new parking meters. Twenty-nine of those meters are on the street and four are in parking lots.
Mayor Paul Dyster tells 7ABC he knows there will be some growing pains over the parking, but it will get better over time.
"The parking system is still in its infancy, so we can't fix problems until someone makes us aware of them."
Regardless, Stewart says he doesn't like the idea at all.
"Where we come from, a smaller town, when they instituted this on street paid parking the downtown area started to decline. So my feeling is this kind of policy is really detrimental. Especially in a town like Niagara falls where you're trying to build up business."
