Downtown Westminster workers can cash in on parking discounts up to $15 today - if they are willing to cross a busy street.

Permit holders at most city parking lots pay $20 a month for spaces, but the city is offering $5 and $10 permits at the Conaway parking lots on Route 27 across from the Sherwood and Longwell lots to relieve parking pressure caused by the construction of a parking garage.

The tri-level garage will be the city's largest parking structure with about 300 spaces, but the work has cut off 135 of the Longwell lot's 296 spaces. Now, workers and customers of downtown shops compete for parking spaces in the city's Sherwood lot.

Started in October, the construction is expected to completed in July. The city wants to create an incentive for workers to use the Conaway lots, leaving about 100 meter spaces in the Sherwood lot for customers.

"Metered spaces are tight so the feeling is that the city needed to take action to free up spaces as many as possible and give an economical reason to park someplace else," said Thomas B. Beyard, director of the city's Department of Planning and Public Works. "There's a strong feeling from businesses that metered spaces should be for customers, not long-term parkers."

Beyard said the discount is for two lots - $10 a month for the 100-space Conaway South, the lot closest to Main Street on the west side of Route 27, and $5 for each of the 100 spaces at Conaway North. Permit holders who have paid for spaces in other lots will receive a refund or credit if they switch.

But some employees aren't biting. They fear that crossing Route 27 could be dangerous, and they are skeptical that the move will solve the problem.

"Our customers are affected. We get a lot of no-shows," said April C. Beacham, 30, a stylist at Venus & Co. Salon & Spa in the Winchester Exchange Building at 15 E. Main St., which is next to the Sherwood parking lot. But "there's only 10 of us who work here, so it's not going to make a difference."

For the past three years, she has fed a meter. On busy days when she doesn't get to her meter in time, she pays the $5 parking tickets.

Though she would save money by parking her car in the Conaway lots, the idea of crossing busy Route 27 doesn't appeal to her.

"I wouldn't want to walk across 27," she said. "They need a pedestrian light because those cars don't stop."

To address that concern, police will station an officer on Route 27 morning and evening rush hours to direct traffic, Beyard said.

Beacham said other safety concerns keep workers on meters because sometimes, they don't leave work until 9 p.m.

"No one wants to park all the way in the Longwell lot," said Mary T. Bonnet, 34, a salon receptionist. "There are a lot of people wandering around here at night."