PARKatlanta Is Lose-Lose Situation for Atlanta Residents, Visitors

PARKatlanta has claimed its fair share of victims.

On Friday, Carolyn Kayne, a singer and musician, became another one of them.

The Old Fourth Ward homeowner was picking up her bicycle at Outback Bikes in Little Five Points. The spaces in the lot behind the Euclid Avenue store were full.

She parked her Ford Explorer across the street, dashed across the street and into the store to retrieve her bike.

The process, she said, took all of two minutes. But that was enough for a PARKatlanta ticketing officer to be at her vehicle, writing a ticket even as she was loading her bike into the Ford.

The experience left Kayne, a forme U.S. Marine, feeling like a predator had just pounced on her.

She's not alone in feeling that way.

Two years into a seven-year contract, Milwaukee-based Duncan Solutions, which runs the city's parking enforcement under the PARKatlanta name, has drawn fire all over Atlanta from residents and visitors alike about its tactics.

Businesses along Euclid Avenue have complained to Atlanta City Councilman Kwanza Hall, whose district includes their street, about how PARKatlanta's tactics have cost them customers.

In this Patch Voices editorial, Kayne, who successfully got an errant scrap metal yard operation out of her Old Fourth Ward neighborhood, explains why PARKatlanta is bad for motorists, bad for business and bad for the city as a whole.