As the ADI committee delved into the issue of equity, members identified several additional systemic uses and abuses that are inequitable. It is seen as inequitable that early morning customers park on the streets and eat breakfast or meet early in the day without paying for their parking as do after 9pm street parkers. The morning number is healthy and growing. The ADI committee identified early in and late out ramp system abusers that do not pay all or a portion of all their parking costs every day as a significant inequity seen repeatedly in all ramps. Familiar examples are the free use of the Bank One lot after hours by officials and citizens attending Council meetings, the free use of the Chamber lot by Trim-B customers, and the free use of the Heid and TCF Bank lots by Pat's Tap customers.
Businesses profit from distinctively different types of parking options.
For example, the Taste of Thai and Blimpie's do not benefit from ramp parking, but the Paper Valley Hotel does not benefit from street parking. The ADI committee scenario meets the equity criterion for the greatest number of downtown businesses because it is user-based. The ADI committee feels that the parking utility should support the efforts by both ADI and the City to bring additional redevelopment projects to the downtown as well as enhance the vitality of existing downtown businesses rather than serve as an obstacle to those efforts. Present management revenue policies seem tuned to meter and ramp cost as the important variable to customers. The ADI committee feels that time and convenience are the true variables for customers .