PARKING PITFALLS
City officials grow impatient with glitches in new parking system
Elected Royal Oak officials are now among those frustrated with technical problems with the city’s new parking system rolled out six months ago.
Technical glitches continue to plague the system installed last year by a private company, Municipal Parking Services.
The company owns all the roughly 700 camera-enhanced meters in the downtown, mails out parking tickets, and splits the money 50-50 with the city.
But the economic marriage between the company and the city is growing strained.
Retailers, especially on Washington Avenue, have expressed their ire for months and started an online petition calling on the city to replace the error prone meters with something else.
Last week, a WWJ radio (950-AM) podcast host visited Royal Oak for a look at the issue, but things went bad when the host tried to park and couldn’t get the meter to work.
“The spot detection wasn’t working on the meter,” said City Commissioner Brandon Kolo, “so the meter didn’t recognize the previous car had left.”
Mayor Michael Fournier tried to park once and was unable to get the Sentry meter that reads license plates to work.
Media coverage of the malfunctioning meters bolstered earlier complaints from businesses and parking users.
Paul Martin, chief operating officer of MPS, appeared before city commissioners Monday. He talked about efforts to correct problems, reports to city police on a daily basis, correcting software issues, and meeting with retailer groups.
“We recognize there have been shortcomings and we take responsibility for that,” Martin said.
Out of 275,000 parking sessions at meters since last November, 140,000 users successfully paid for their time, Martin said. Compliance with the parking meters was 50 percent in April and now at 60 percent, he added.
Fournier has anecdotal data about meters not working and asked Martin what the failure-to-function rate is at the meters. Martin didn’t have an immediate answer.
“If you have a (bank) ATM and it only works 97 percent of the time there’s going to be a lot of pissed off people,” the mayor said. “We have to get better, at an ATM level … All I know is that a lot of people (are having) these issues. If nobody has confidence (in the system) that’s a problem.”
The mayor and Commissioner Kolo both said continuing meter problems are having a negative impact on businesses and
the city’s reputation.
“We have a black eye and a bloody nose now,” Kolo told Martin, adding he heard of a motorist who parked for 15 minutes and was billed for two hours on the Sentry meter parking app.
Another who used a space on a Sunday, when parking is free, was billed for parking there on a Monday.
Martin agreed to a request from Kolo that MPS technicians come in and individually test each parking meter to make sure it is functioning properly.
“We are not going to continue to let them give us a parking system that is not fully functioning,” Kolo said Wednesday. “The city brought MPS in and really held their feet to the fire with issues we are seeing.”
Lori London, a board member with the city’s Downtown Development Authority and owner of the Write Impressions stationery shop on Washington Avenue, is among retailers who have complained about how the parking system is driving customers away.
Because the meter cameras only read license plates, vehicles have to back into the angled parking spaces on Washington.
“The biggest overarching problem is the (parking) system itself,” London said. “We have to help (customers) every day figure out how to use the meters. Why is this so difficult?”
The glitchy parking system is driving customers away, according to London and other retailers.
An unknown number of people are avoiding the new parking system completely and there are “people who say I’m not going downtown,” said City Commissioner Patricia Paruch.