The city says the meters were meant to help parking turnover more often; when the spots were free, people would park for hours on end, clogging up the spots.

FORT WORTH, Texas — It's been six months already, and people are still figuring out that you now have to pay for street parking in the West 7th Street area of Fort Worth.

"Here it was always like, if there’s an open spot, it’s free, great," said driver Chris Duran, who'd just parked on Crockett St. "Then I come up and the meter’s here, and I'm like why is this meter here? It used to be free."

Indeed, the city of Fort Worth says people have been slow to adopt the new policy.

"For the first four months or so, we gave close to 2,000 warnings," said Tanya Brooks, assistant director of the city's transportation and public works department. "So that tells you there was not a lot of compliance with the parking meters."

But Brooks said those numbers are getting better, and they're feeling good about the decision to create 250 metered parking spaces in the area bordered by West 7th St., Foch Street, Lancaster Avenue and University Drive.

Brooks says back when the spots were free, area employees took up parking for hours on end, making patron parking problematic. Now, employees park off site, freeing up those street spots.

There's now off-site parking at Farrington Field for patrons and employees alike; it comes with a cost on weekend evenings.

"This change is working well," Brooks said.

Not everyone agrees.

"We’d like to see the meters completely removed," said Perry Tong, who owns Pop's Safari Room, a cigar shop on Morton. He's been in business here for 30 years.

He's collected a couple hundred signatures so far from his patrons on a petition against the meters, in hopes City Hall will listen to his concerns. He says his business has suffered significantly since the meters came in-- at the worst, 30 percent decrease in sales.

"We have a lot of in and out shoppers down here," Tong said. "In and out shoppers don’t tolerate paying a dollar and a half for a trip into the store."

Still, the city says they're hearing business owners are supportive overall.

"Our goal was to try to give the perception there is parking," Brooks said.

And for Chris Duran, it worked Tuesday.