Dear City Council

I have a pet peeve and I'm hoping you can do something about it.

Dear City Council,

My pet peeve is that when I have a meeting downtown, or perhaps an event, and I find myself driving around various city blocks for the nearest affordable parking garage that won't virtually reach into my car, steal my purse, rip my wallet out, take all my cash, and then roll around naked in it howling, "ALL YOUR DOLLARS ARE BELONG TO US," I find that many, if not most garages and lots do not post their hourly rates on the outsides of the entrances, but rather deep into the entrances.

What this means is that you have to pull your car in to find out that the first 30 minutes you're parked there is going to set you back eight dollars.

Eight dollars for thirty minutes? NO WAY. But now that you know how expensive this lot is, you've got a car or two behind you waiting to enter the garage for their turn to hand over their arms and legs. You can't go back. You must go forward. You're trapped and will have to pay the exorbitant fee.

This is unfair. This is like a grocery store not putting any prices on their shelves and instead waiting until you get in line to pay to tell you how much everything costs, forcing you to either look foolish and take expensive items back to the shelves, or to just suck it up and pay.

I understand why garages and lots do this; they want the business and they know that once a car enters, ten times out of ten, that car will STAY entered and will not back out of the garage.

Look, if we're going to be subjected to these high rates, especially in light of the very good chance that the prospective parking lease will raise rates even further over the next few years, the least you can do is give us drivers the chance to price shop without asking six cars behind us to back up.

Lots and garages operating in the city of Pittsburgh should be ordered to place their rates, easily viewable, on the outsides of their establishments.

This way, as a person drives down the Boulevard of the Allies, they'll know that the Gateway Center Garage will put them out half an arm, but the nearby Wood-Allies Garage will only put them out less than ten dollars for a whole day.

It should not take trial and error to learn just how much parking in a garage is going to hurt our wallets.

Fix this, please.

Yours,

PittGirl

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This article appears in the September 2010 issue of PittGirl

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