City considering changes to downtown angle parking

A new parking meter system coming this fall has Royal Oak officials considering changes to the onstreet angled parking on Washington Avenue and Seventh Street in the downtown.

The City Commission is set to take the issue up at its regular meeting today.

Royal Oak is scheduled to install up to 800 new parking meters for onstreet and municipal surface parking lots.

A company called Municipal Parking Services would install and operate the new meters.

Among the different features of MPS’s meter system is a camera that takes a picture of a motorist’s license plate number that is used to generate a ticket if the meter isn’t fed by the time the person leaves.

However, that camera system won’t work on the existing angled street parking spaces where motorists pull in with the front of the vehicle facing the meter.

Since Michigan drivers have no license plates on the front of their vehicles, MPS’s meter cameras would be unable to read a plate for enforcement, said City Manager Paul Brake.

There are a total of 134 angled spots on Washington between Lincoln and Fourth Street, and on Seventh Street between Washington and Main Street.

“One of the (options) to be considered is reverse angle parking where you would back into the angled parking space,” Brake said.

The Michigan Department of Transportation currently only allows reverse angle parking or parallel parking on its trunklines, which MDOT deems safer for motorists, cyclists and pedestrians.

Some communities in southwest Michigan have studied or incorporated reverse angle parking, along with larger cities nationally such as Austin, Texas, Charlotte, N.C., and Baltimore, Md.

Results have been mixed with some business owners and motorists. Paw Paw Village in Van Buren County eliminated the back-in parking model. In Baltimore, however, residents petitioned to get reverse angle parking installed in part of the city.

Brake said people in general don’t like to back up in their vehicles when parking, but often object less as they become more familiar with the process.

“Most people don’t like parallel parking either for the same reason,” he said. Brake, however, added that automakers have been required since 2018 to have driver cameras for backing up, which makes the process easier..

Pulling out of a reverse angle parking spot where the driver can see the traffic before moving is safer and gives the driver a better view of oncoming traffic, Brake said.

City Engineer Holly Donoghue in a memo to city commissioners suggests they move to approve reverse angle parking or bring back the parallel parking that used to be on Washington Avenue.

Reverse angle parking “is not prevalent in most areas and is generally only considered for downtown areas,” Donoghue said in her memo.

City staff members have researched reverse angle parking.

“In some cases it is wellreceived by the public, and in others it has been controversial and ultimately removed,” Donoghue said.

About 40 spaces would be lost if city officials decide to install parallel parking on Washington and Seventh Street, and eight spaces would be lost if reverse angle parking is installed, she said.

If reverse angle parking is used, signs showing how to park in the back-in spaces would be installed, and the city would do a public education effort.

It would cost about $43,000 to do street striping for reverse angle parking, since the spaces would have to be flipped to angle in the opposite direction of those now in place.