NOREEN: Manitou has learned all too well from Colorado Springs

It's a hanging offense to utter this sort of sacrilege, but Manitou Springs is getting a bit more like Colorado Springs all the time.

Manitou officials just approved a $5 flat rate parking charge for cars using the parking lot at Barr Trail. Beginning July 1, it's five bucks if you are there 10 minutes and five bucks if you are there 10 days.

Five bucks, five bucks, five bucks. The lot held 36 cars Monday morning, but city officials say when it is graded and paved, a 30- or 32-vehicle limit is more realistic. Using a conservative estimate of 50 cars day, Manitou's parking fee would bring in more than $90,000 a year - far more than it would cost to maintain the parking lot.

Of course, depending on how someone is using Pikes Peak, the turnover in the lot is quite high. No one knows a precise daily average; no one has ever kept track.

But Matt Carpenter, the Manitou resident and distance runner whose love of Pikes Peak is well known, said the average number of cars in the lot is higher than 50. Carpenter said charging people to park there is long overdue, "but I want to see some money go back to maintain Barr Trail."

Manitou Springs is in the process of establishing a parking enterprise and it's yet to be determined how money milked from its prize cash cow will be spent. If Carpenter's estimate of cars using the lot is correct, it will generate a six-figure number.

Using Pikes Peak as a cash cow is nothing new. Through the Pikes Peak Highway, Colorado Springs has been doing it for decades.

The city's strategy was to put as little money into the mountain as possible while raking in money from the tourists who drive up.

Ultimately, a Sierra Club lawsuit forced the city to be a better steward of the mountain.

From Manitou's point of view, the parking fee is a thing of enduring beauty. Without raising taxes, it will bring in a lot of money, most of which will be paid by nonresidents who will be subsidizing other city operations.

Paying for parking at Barr Trail is great, but politically, it's a given that blood will flow six inches deep in the gutters of Manitou Avenue before downtown's retailers ever would allow parking meters to be installed. As Mayor Eric Drummond masterfully understated it, "I would be somewhat surprised if I saw meters sprouting out of the ground."

Of the Barr Trail lot, Drummond said he's heard out-of-towners say, "‘We're surprised your city didn't charge for it a long time ago.'"

The parking shouldn't be free but as the fee is designed, it's a blunt instrument. It will force users of the Manitou Incline farther down Ruxton Avenue, and it's already apparent that free parking there for nonresidents also is about to end.

Some sort of annual or seasonal parking pass seems in order, but that idea might run counter to the city's lust for revenue. Ah, Manitou: You learned well from your neighbor to the east.
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