Cities cope with decline in parking revenue

This time last year, the future looked bright for the New Haven Parking Authority.

Key commuter lots sat near max occupancy on a regular basis and the city was on pace to collect a record-high in parking revenue fees, according to Doug Hausladen, executive director of the city’s parking authority.

But when COVID-19 descended on Connecticut in March, things took a turn. By April, parking fees plummeted to a four-year low for the city.

Despite a brief surge from May to October, revenues dipped again in November. In the ensuing two months, Hausladen said the numbers have been “terrible.”

Over that stretch, Union Station went from being New Haven’s most lucrative commuter parking lot to its lowest performing location. At times, Hausladen said, the city even considered shutting down the station.

“Usually, a train station like that funds itself and the parking at the train station makes a profit annually, and that profit supports the maintenance there. But this year is the first time under our management that the station has not turned a profit,” he said.

In New Haven, revenue tied to parking dipped from $13.4 million in the 2019 fiscal year to $12.8 million in 2020.

“What’s really challenging about that is the city of New Haven was really counting on revenues from our parking authority,” Hausladen added.

New Haven isn’t alone. Around the state, commuter-heavy cities like New Haven are dealing with fallout from the pandemic. With people increasingly working from home and avoiding restaurants and live events, dips in parking fee revenues have become a cause for concern for many.

Other cities, like Norwalk, have had an even rougher go of it.

In 2020, Norwalk suffered a nearly 47 percent — or $1.5 million — decline in parking fees, largely due to the lack of commuters using the train station lots, according to Parking Authority manager Michael Harden.

Nearly a year after the city’s first coronavirus case surfaced, Norwalk’s MetroNorth Railroad stations and adjoining parking lots in

East and South Norwalk are still operating at less than 20 percent capacity.

“The few thousand people we have buying monthly passes for train station parking are the bulk of our revenue, and when only 20 percent of that group is heading down to the city for work, that’s a huge downfall for us,” Harden said.

Unlike many cities, Bridgeport saw parking meter revenue rise by $9,000 in the 2020 fiscal year. However, the city still saw a 19 percent dip in total parking revenue collected, due largely to a decrease in parking violation fees collected by the city.

In the 2020 fiscal year, Bridgeport collected just over $350,000 less in parking violations than in the previous year.

In the first six months of this fiscal year, Bridgeport has collected only $62,000 from parking meters, putting it on pace to finish the year well short of the $364,000 collected last year and the $345,000 collected in 2019.

Despite the lackluster returns, there is still a glimmer of hope in the city — and the state’s — future, according to Steve Auerbach, the city’s director of parking and enforcement.

“Now with the vaccines coming out, we’re absolutely very optimistic that people will be coming back to downtown Bridgeport and life will continue on,” he said.

Debbie Pacifico, director of Danbury’s Parking Authority, sounded a similar note, despite what she called a “trying year.”

In the first six months of the 2021 fiscal year, Danbury has seen a more than 34 percent downturn in parking revenue. From July 2019 to January 2020, the city collected $573,740 in parking fees and other sources of revenue. A year later, the city has collected only $377,548 over the same six-month stretch.

To make ends meet, Pacifico said five part-time staff members were furloughed at the beginning of the pandemic. Meanwhile, full-time employees had their pay and hours reduced by as much as 60 percent, Pacifico said.

Still, she remains optimism that better days lay ahead for parking authorities throughout the state.

“We are hopeful that as more people are vaccinated, offices will reopen and the workforce will return,” Pacifico said.