Lodi’s parking meter pilot program sees mixed results at start

It’s been about a month since the City of Lodi kicked off its parking meter pilot program, and according to City Manger Steve Schwabauer, compliance has been low.

The pilot program started Oct. 23 and will end Dec. 9. The program has been extended so that the meters can be used for the annual light parade scheduled for Dec. 7, Lodi Police Capt. Chris Jacobson said.

According to Schwabauer, the parking stalls with the meters have been pretty heavily occupied. However, up until two or three weeks ago the city wasn’t issuing citations and people recognized that, so the compliance rate was low.

“I think it was about 35 or 40 percent of the time people were actually paying but they were being heavily used,” Schwabauer said. “We started issuing citations about a week ago, maybe two weeks ago. I don’t have any data at this point about what has happened to the compliance rate since we started issuing citations but overall it seems like they’ve been pretty heavily used.”

On a personal level, Schwabauer has found the meters to be convenient.

“My family eats at Smack Pie regularly and for me personally to be able to pull up and slap my credit card in there or pay for it with an app on my phone, which I have set up, it’s really easy,” Schwabauer said when asked about the benefits of the meters.

“There is typically at least one stall open. I can at least go to my phone and before I get there I know there is a place for me to park because the app shows me where there is an open parking spot. Twenty cents to pick up a pizza. I’m not going to complain about that. Frankly its probably cheaper for me to be able to find a parking stall than it is for me to drive around looking for a place to park. I personally find it to be a pretty nice system.”

While he may find the system convenient, Schwabauer recognized that the meters are unpopular with many people.

“Different people who have an aversion to parking meters will obviously see it differently.

I don’t have an aversion to parking meters. I’ve used them in many communities and I’m accustomed to paying for parking in other communities, so it doesn’t bother me. If I think it’s wrong to pay for parking in the first place, then obviously I won’t see that value because I’d be so frustrated with being asked to pay.”

Schwabauer said the main issue is revenue and it can be costly maintaining parking in the Downtown district. The city just renovated two Downtown parking lots and will have to redo another, Schwabauer said.

“That’s tremendously expensive, it’s $3,000 or $4,000 to rebuild a parking lot. It might be as much as $5,000 depending on how much concrete work that needs to be done. It’s terribly expensive, and if we’re going to have resources to invest in Downtown we’ve got to find a way to fund it,” Schwabauer said.

Schwabauer said that while revenue is one of the biggest benefits of having the meters, the pilot program doesn’t really showcase that benefit. He noted that there are other ways to generate revenue besides parking meters, such as taxes, but most require a vote.

“The question is: should the

fees that are supporting stuff Downtown be coming from Downtown, or should it be coming from the city at large?,” Schwabauer said.

According to Downtown Business Alliance President John Della Monica, the city did inform the alliance that revenue from the meters would be used for Downtown improvements. Della Monica noted that the city was already providing those improvements and revenue would replace the money the city has to spend out of its general revenue budget instead of adding any supplemental revenue for improvements.

“It’s not coming to us as new revenue, it’s just simply replacing old services,” Della

Monica said.

While the meters could bring in new revenue, the initial purpose was to solve parking problems in Downtown. Many citizens have expressed concerns that business owners and employees, not shoppers, are filling up the parking spots because they refuse to use the parking garage on Sacramento Street.

Schwabauer said meters could incentivize people to find alternative parking.

“What this meter does is it knows your car is there and it will issue you a ticket if you’re over time,” Schwabauer said. “It will also allow you to park there all day, but it gets a bit expensive for a person who’s working Downtown to be parking in that location

as their regular parking space. If you’re paying the meter fee to be there eight hours for your job it would be quite expensive.”

At this moment, Schwabauer is unsure if the city will recommend to council to go ahead with the meters.

Della Monica said it’s no secret that most of the Downtown merchants are not in favor of the meters. He said the alliance performed a survey several months ago and about 60 percent of the members were not in favor of meters. Of the remaining 40 percent, 15 percent said they needed more information before making a decision.

Della Monica was looking forward to seeing the results

of the pilot program once it comes to an end.

Jacobson said the meters would be very beneficial to police. He said one complaint the department has received is there is not enough enforcement Downtown, and the meters could help with that, Jacobson said. He noted that the meters being tested have high quality video capability and license plate readers. Purchasing video surveillance for Downtown would be very expensive, but there are free cameras and license plate readers in every meter, Jacobson said.

“We can get the consistency that people have been complaining that we don’t offer, that we can’t offer the way we do it now,” he said.