One of the new parking meters in downtown Main Street, Lake Placid, is seen in late January by the municipal parking lot. (Enterprise photo — Andy Flynn)

LAKE PLACID — Village officials are mulling an increase in the parking rate for the municipal lot across from the post office. They’re also considering extending the hours that parking fees are enforced.

It currently costs 50 cents per hour to park in the large municipal parking lot on Main Street, with an added 35 cent charge for those who use the Flowbird parking mobile app. The village board is considering whether that base rate should be changed, Mayor Craig Randall said during the village board’s meeting last week.

The rate for the large lot was lowered in the past to encourage more visitors to use it, rather than park on the street where spaces are more limited, according to Randall. The rate is lower in the bigger lot than other lots on the street.

During a recent review of the downtown parking regime in preparation for the village’s upcoming two-year, $8 million Main Street overhaul — which will require the street to be reduced to one lane at times — village officials started to discuss whether to increase the parking rates in the bigger lot.

Randall also said last week that the village is looking at “the possibility of adjusting hours that meters would be effective throughout the village.” Randall said on Monday that there’s “some interest in creating in that lot a 24-hour parking situation.”

The meters are currently enforced from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. six days a week, and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sundays.

Lake Placid Police Chief William Moore said the code gives the village board the authority to change both the parking rates and the hours of enforcement.

The parking rates can be changed by resolution, but changing the hours of enforcement would require a public hearing, according to Randall.

The village board was expected to discuss the possible changes more at its next meeting on Monday, Oct. 5.

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Meter revenue

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The village temporarily suspended parking enforcement in April and May as businesses remained closed by state order, as restaurants offered take-out only, and as stay-at-home recommendations in the early weeks of the coronavirus pandemic here caused tourism to slow significantly. At that time, few people were seen walking down Main Street.

When businesses began to reopen, Lake Placid saw a gradual resurgence in tourism. Now the Main Street business district is bustling again. On weekends and days when the weather is nice, some restaurants have seen lines out the door — in part because of the ongoing restrictions on capacity.

Randall said early this month that parking meter revenue in July and August were higher this year than last year.

“That may have a lot to do with the fact that the meters are actually working,” he said on Sept. 8.

A portion of parking meter revenue is directed to a fund for Main Street upgrades. The village used some money from that fund to install new parking meters around the village in January. The new meters, which introduced the option of using a cellphone app to pay for parking, replaced meters that were around a decade old.