Parking Fees in Downtown CR Will Return to Normal on Monday

For the past few months, parking in Downtown Cedar Rapids has been a lot easier and a lot cheaper. Monthly permit parking fees were waived for several weeks, while on-street parking regulations were enforced for "safety and control purposes only." According to a Park Cedar Rapids Facebook post, the purpose of these changes was to provide "relief and assistance to downtown workers and businesses."

As the state begins to reopen more businesses, Park Cedar Rapids has announced that all the parking regulations in the downtown area will officially return to normal next week. The post reads:

"As we anticipate the reopening of many businesses following Gov. Kim Reynolds updated Proclamation of Disaster Relief, Cedar Rapids’ downtown parking system will resume normal parking practices effective Monday, June 1st, 2020. This is to include both monthly parking operations and enforcement practices related to metered parking in downtown."

You can read the full statement from Park Cedar Rapids below:

Our radio stations are located in downtown Cedar Rapids, and I am one of the four employees that have been working from our building since the start of this pandemic. Honestly, it's been kind of strange driving through the downtown streets. Every time I've ordered carry-out from a downtown restaurant, I've been able to find parking directly in front of the business, which almost NEVER happens. Plus, our parking ramp has been far less than half full on days where there are normally a ton of cars. There are more pigeons than people! It will be interesting to see how quickly things return to business as usual, especially since our coworkers will be returning to the office on Monday.