AUSTIN, Texas--Thousands of Austinites and visitors are learning the hard way they're not welcome in some neighborhoods.
In the past 12 months, Austin Parking Enforcement Officers have issued ticketed 5,358 tickets and 326 warnings for illegally parking in "Residents Only" areas. That's an average of almost 15 tickets a day.
Austin created the Residential Parking Program in 1996 at the request of North University Neighborhood Association. Homeowners wanted to prevent University of Texas students from parking in front of their homes.
The program added about eight blocks a year from 1997 through 2010. In the past five years, the number of blocks added to the Residential Parking Program have quadrupled to an average of more than 33 blocks a year; requests peaked in 2015 with 49 blocks of Austin streets added to the program.
"It has evolved with more businesses moving into the City of Austin," Austin Transportation Engineer Steve Grassfield said. "There's 100 people moving in a day. There are many restaurants and businesses opening up every single day. Those two pressures have caused residential parking to grow."
MORE | Interactive Parking District Map (Courtesy Geosheets)
Austin Transportation Department managers said they're balancing between homeowners and nearby businesses.
"Parking has been a real problem for the inner city neighborhoods," Steve Macon, a resident of East Austin's Swede Hill neighborhood, said. "Frankly, it's really been a big impact on the quality of life."
Macon's neighborhood joined the program after he says construction workers from Dell Medical School clogged the streets.
"Residents with no off-street parking for homes that were built at the turn of the century had nowhere to park," he said. "It was a real problem."
MORE | Map of Residential Parking Districts
Critics say the Residential Parking Program flies in the face of the city's own policies. Most of the bans are during daytime hours, when residents are at work and nearby businesses are busy.
"If the goal of residential permit parking is to make sure residents have a place to park, it's overkill," South Austin resident Dan Keshet said. "You see a lot of streets that are just going unused at the same time that it is very hard to find parking for the people who are wanting to go to the businesses nearby."
Homeowners have previously rejected plans to install parking meters in their neighborhoods, Grassfield said. Residents pay $15 a year per parking permit; they are allowed to buy up to two residential permits and two visitor passes.