Parking abounds in Burlington
Did you know that there nearly 9,000 parking spaces in Burlington?
A recent study showed that of those spaces, 3,650 of those are public parking spaces that open for use at all times. Even more interesting, the study showed during the peak hours of the week, Friday afternoons from 1-3 PM, over 32% of those spaces are unoccupied. This means that when Burlington is at its busiest, there are still over 1180 available spaces downtown!
Many of the available spaces in Burlington, over 1,000 in fact, are metered spots. At red and blue meters you can park for up to three hours and gray meters will give you an hour. Shopping all day? Grab a brown meter for up to 10 hours of time. Don’t stay that long at yellow meters though, they vary between 15 and 30 minutes.
At meters other than brown and at various other parking spots, the average cost of parking in the city is about $1 per hour. If you are strapped for cash though, there are four garages in Burlington which provide two free hours of parking (Marketplace Municipal Garage/Macy’s Municipal Garage/College Street Municipal Garage/Burlington Town Center.) Plus, parking at the meters is free on Sundays and every day after 6 PM.
This sounds great for people who are coming to Burlington to do a little shopping or grab a bite to eat, but what about employees who commute to Burlington and need to park all day? The answer lies not in commuting all the way into the city, but to a free parking lot just off of Pine Street, about one mile from town. Once parked, anyone can hop on a shuttle that runs from this lot to Saint Paul and Bank Streets. This cost for this shuttle will run you less than $20 per month.
Some employees may prefer to park a little closer and walk to work. In these cases, commuters can find larger metered or attended lots on Elmwood Ave, Main Street and South Winooski, King Street and Saint Paul, and at the Fletcher Free Library. Larger lots can also be found on the waterfront at Pease (at the end of College Street) and Perkins’ Pier.
For a complete list of rates and a map of city parking, visit http://www.ci.burlington.vt.us/docs/2902.pdf.
