ZELIENOPLE — Residents soon will see a big change in parking.

Borough council voted Monday night to amend its parking ordinance to eliminate traditional metered parking in lieu of free, two-hour parking.

“We’re going to try this for about a year to see how it goes,” Police Chief Jim Miller said.

Streets to have two-hour parking include Main, New Castle and Spring.

Parking will be enforced from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays. Sundays and holidays will be unaffected with the new ordinance.

No parking will be allowed from 3 to 5 a.m.

This change follows action last week by Evans City to offer free parking in that borough for May, June and July. If that goes well, Evans City may eliminate its parking meters.

The change in Zelienople stems from talks with about 35 businesses to improve parking for customers and residents.

“From reading some of the history items, part of the problem for merchants was employees parking in the street all day,” Miller said. “We’ve talked to a lot of people about it and involved a lot of the community, so it’s going to be kind of up to them to help us out a bit.”

Some exception areas to the new parking rules include:

Two spaces at the post office, which will limit parking to 15 minutes.

Unrestricted parking on Spring Street, east of the Harper Building.

Unrestricted parking for West Spring Street, west of the Spring Street parking lot exit.

Two parking spaces on the south side of West New Castle Street, near the intersection with Main Street, that will be a no-parking zone.

Under the new ordinance, two-hour parking restrictions on Clay and High streets and street-metered parking in the Grandview Avenue and Spring Street municipal parking lots are abolished.

Parking regulations may be adjusted for parades, festivals and community events.

New fines also will be in play with the new ordinance. First-time offenders will be fined $25. Each consecutive offense will increase by $25.

Miller said about $400 is collected from fines per year from the old fining system.

He also said “roughly between $12,000 and $19,000” is collected each year from the meters.

The meters themselves will be covered, but not removed.

Miller said if the new parking ordinance does not work out, the borough could opt to reinstate the meters or fully use the electronic parking kiosks.

The municipal parking lot between Grandview Avenue and Main Street is metered by an electronic kiosk.

The 111-space municipal parking lot planned for Spring Street between Main and South Clay streets will be kiosk-controlled.

“We kind of did this to see if we could get away with the kiosks for everywhere to help the merchants out,” Miller said.

The borough has about 175 metered spaces, 66 of those on Main Street.