Next time you go to the Fairgrounds, you might get the privilege of paying $8 to park through a machine. The state is paying some $3.2 million over 10 years to get the machines up and running in hopes of speeding your trip around Ring Road. You’ll be able to use a credit card or cash.
I think I’ll park over there behind the Cracker Barrel and walk in. Or try crashing the gate on my bike and see if the officials come up with an anti-bike rule, like they did for this year’s Kentucky State Fair.
I’m not complaining about the automation, and I don’t care if a few dozen of those nice people who collect your money over there lose their part-time jobs. In fact, I think the automation is a positive step forward for the Fairgrounds. It’s an expectation today that you can pay for things with a card, not cash.
But charging $8 to park there is offensive. One guy wrote a response to the Courier-Journal story saying he remembered when it was just $2. In the 1980s. I don’t doubt it, but I know that you could park at KFEC for $4 as recently as 2003. It went up to $5 in 2004, then $6 in 2008. Now it’s $8. That’s way ahead of inflation.
It’s not like you’re paying for improvements in the parking situation there, either. It’s simple greed, and the belief that they have a captive audience and can charge whatever the hell they want to. They made $4 million last year.
For parking. When are people going to say they’ve had enough?
