(Staff photo)
An initiative designed to help improve traffic for uptown Saint John businesses has been extended.
Uptown Saint John partnered with the city to offer one hour of free on-street parking daily to HotSpot Parking users.
The city supplied Uptown Saint John with $35,000 to run the program through the months of February.
But with an estimated $9,000 expected to be left by months end, council voted Monday to extend the program into April until those funds run out.
Nancy Tissington, executive director of Uptown Saint John, has said the program was designed to help businesses get through the difficult months after the holidays.
Tissington said this year has been even harder than usual because of the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
More than one-in-five uptown business owners who responded to a survey conducted by Uptown Saint John reported seeing new customers through the initiative.
To date, Uptown Saint John said there have been an average of 329 free parking sessions per day, with an average of three free sessions per user.
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