AUGUSTA, Ga. () – Augusta leaders are looking for ways to ease the burdens on parking caused by downtown street projects.

With ongoing construction, parking downtown has recently been hard to come by—but city leaders say it will be worth the wait. 

“Any type of improvement to our downtown corridor is a bonus. I think the biggest thing is just making sure the communication is there. We’ve had business owners that have been here for years, so we need to make sure we’re including them in that process—and we’re doing that now,” said District 5 Commissioner Don Clark.

Tuesday, commissioners voted unanimously to have the administrator’s office and traffic engineers work together to find the best solution.

Part of the plan calls to make Reynolds and Ellis Streets into one-way roads, which some say could be a solution to an ongoing problem.

“This has been going on for a while—Reynolds and Ellis Street too. You have half of Ellis Street where it’s only one way, and other parts of Ellis Street have traffic going both directions. So it is confusing, and we need to make sure both of those roads go one way,” said District 3 Commissioner Catherine Smith-Rice.

Another plan will look at better enforcement of the 2 hour parking limit downtown. 

City leaders say they would support using paid parking in the area.

“If anything, it will keep things like ride and share from happening. That way, when they decide to park their car at 8 am in the morning and they don’t pick up their cars until 5 pm—I don’t think they’d want to pay that on a daily basis if there’s paid parking,” said Smith-Rice.

“I think it’s long overdue. It’s not any area you can go to around the state or outside the state that their downtown corridor doesn’t have paid parking. I just think it’s another one of those aspects of just maturing, and moving to a different level of things,” Clark said.

With city leaders saying yes, now they’ll go to the drawing board to find the best way to make more parking available.