Horseshoe Bend Walk-In Fee Makes U-turn

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PAGE – Page City Council shelved the proposed $5 walk-in fee earlier this month. The fee was one of the ideas brought forth to address safety concerns at Horseshoe Bend in conjunction with a new city traffic ordinance and shuttle services.


The walk-in fee could come up again if current actions don’t solve the safety problem. This would require a 60-day public notice and 30 days to enact the change. However, in order to do this, the parking lot would need to add a walk-in station and processing system. This would require Phase Three design modifications, additional construction and staff. In previous discussions by the council and staff, the idea was to begin the process and have it in place, in other words, a fallback plan.


Discussions at Wednesday night’s meeting were more optimistic about the effectiveness of the new ordinance and partnership with local shuttle and cab services.


Councilor Dennis Warner said, “This was brought up partly as a solution to the ordinance we just passed. So, in light of the fact that we have passed an ordinance to prohibit individuals from offloading and walking in. We may want to put this on the back burner for now because we really don’t have a way to facilitate walk-in traffic, so it may be a moot issue unless staff develops some other form of need for an individualized pass. We put this out there because we thought that this needed to be in place in addition to working out some means to prevent people from offloading, but it may not be relevant now.”


City Manager Michael Celaya echoed Warner’s opinion saying, “Staff also concurs with this recommendation as well, as the resolution itself will take care of what our issue was in the first place. So, in lieu of that I think that the ordinance that has been proposed will suffice the issues of walk-ins."


The Chronicle asked Warner if public perception of the fee influenced the council’s decision. He said, “I don’t think public perception played as much of a role in our decision as did the fact that a walk-up fee probably isn’t necessary at this point. The ordinance, together with active enforcement should take care of the problem of people unloading at the entrance and just walking in. The ordinance was passed with an emergency clause which means that we can begin enforcement immediately. It’s my opinion that this problem will likely go away within a few months of attention.”