Starting Jan. 5, 2026, Columbia’s downtown parking meter rate will increase from 60 cents to $1 per hour. Columbia’s City Council approved this change on Sept. 15 as a part of the Fiscal Year 2026 budget.
Parking south of Elm Street already has a $1 hourly rate, and this change will standardize rates between downtown and campus areas.
Having two different rates in the past has allowed some people, such as Mizzou students, to fill up parking spots meant for district shoppers, said John Ogan, public information specialist for City of Columbia Public Works.
“We will be unifying them to $1 across the city,” Ogan said. “There’s a variety of reasons for that. One reason is that many people who wanted to park in the campus area were parking downtown to take advantage of that lower rate.”
Nickie Davis, executive director of The District, explained that higher rates are necessary to maintain turnover and support small businesses in Columbia. Davis said that inconsistent enforcement in recent years led some drivers to leave vehicles downtown for hours or even days.
“Our small businesses need that turnover so their customers can park close,” Davis said. “So with this parking rate increase, we also are hoping that people will understand and start to better utilize the parking spots.”
When people put money into a parking meter, that payment goes into the parking fund, otherwise called an enterprise fund. From there, that fund is limited to improving parking.
Increasing the parking meter rate helps the city fund projects related to parking. According to Ogan, this increase will go towards improving the elevator at the parking garage on Tenth Street and Cherry Street, as well as maintenance at Fifth Street and Walnut Street.
However, regular maintenance requires sufficient revenue.
“So any money paid into parking has to stay within the system,” Ogan said. “We found that since about 2020, the revenues that we were taking in weren’t meeting our maintenance needs. So that is part of the reason why that we’ve asked council to raise the downtown rates to $1 per hour.”
People can pay for parking through ParkMobile, and starting Jan. 5, 2026, the app won’t have any additional fees. There are also more advantages to using the app; users will be able to add more money while not standing at the meter, get notifications when their spot is about to expire, and even earn coupons and rewards. Ogan said.
In comparison to 18 other college towns, Columbia has one of the lowest parking meter rates. Even with the increase to $1, the city’s rates remain below average.
“Compared to other cities, it is relatively normal,” Davis said. “We’re not above average by any means, so hopefully people will understand the need for it.”
