Visitors and residents that come to Easton's Downtown and want to park curbside and in metered ground-level city-owned will pay a little more next year, if city council approves the proposed 2013 budget as presented by Mayor Sal Panto Monday evening.
The current rate is 50c an hour, but the plan is to raise metered parking to 75c per hour and extend hours of operation, with metered parking in effect from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and also adding metered hours on Sundays from 1 to 5 p.m. in the prime commercial areas of the city, namely at metered spots from the Centre Square south along Third Street.
A city ordinance allowing for the increase was already passed earlier this year Panto said, but the changes have not been put into effect.
Panto said the Sunday hours were added to capture increased revenue from city visitors on a prime weekend day, but the expanded area and times will hopefully not impact locals attending services at local churches.
The administration also wants to install new smart meters that can accept credit cards at curbside locations and a kiosk system at city surface lots that will also allow users to pay with plastic, eliminating a possible scrambling for quarters to “feed the meter.” Card users will have to deposit at least $1, but the meters and kiosks will also still accept quarters for those that wish to pay cash.
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| Photos of IPS Group's smart meters from Bethlehem's test run last summer. The sophisticated devices run on solar power and users can pay either with quarters or by credit or debit card. Additionally, the meters communicate with parking enforcement officers and can reprogrammed with whatever changes a municipality chosses via wifi connection instead of requiring each to be changed individually by hand. |
Easton Police have contracted to test both systems, Panto said, and about 50 solar smart meters from IPS Group Inc. are likely to appear in the most heavily trafficked parking spots near the county courthouse in about a month. The test period is to last for 60 to 90 days, he added.The meters are identical to ones that were tested in Bethlehem's historic district last year. City officials refused to estimate the total cost for purchasing a total of 250 meter heads that would be installed in the most heavily trafficked section of the Downtown area—specifically between Second and Fourth streets and Spring Garden and Ferry streets—with another 50 solar smart meters to be placed in the most used street-side spots in the courthouse district in the city's West Ward, saying they are still negotiating the possible deal.
However, City Administrator Glenn Steckman said they do hope to haggle a better deal than Bethlehem. Last year, Bethlehem estimated IPS devices as costing about $600 per meter head.
Cited advantages of the smart meters include being wi-fi capable and able to communicate their status to enforcement officials, letting them know which are expired, or even jammed so maintenance calls happen immediately. Additionally, the sophisticated IPS devices are capable of being topped off via a cell phone, though no mention of that feature was made Monday evening, and the feature wouldn't work for those that were already at the meter's maximum time limit, which is three hours at most Downtown spots and two in the Centre Square. After the limit is reached, the vehicle would still have to be moved.
Panto said the city will either negotiate a zero-percent loan with IPS if it's offered or “borrow” the money from the city's capital improvements fund, with payments from parking revenues paying back the fund over a period of about three years.
Steckman added that if the test is successful and city official approve the budget with the increased rates, meters might be installed all at once, or they might happen instead in increments.
“It all depends,” Steckman added. “We don't want to go out and purchase this to find out we didn't need it.”
Additionally, he said that parking meters outside the planned areas in the Downtown will not be upgraded as he doesn't feel the upgrade would yield revenue to justify the costs at this point.
The city will also test a parking kiosk at it's surface lot on South Third Street. That system, provided by Parkeon, will also accept credit and debit cards, as well as cash. Unlike some systems that require drivers to physically walk a payment receipt back to their vehicles and display them on the dashboard, the Parkeon system will ask users to enter their parking spot number, which will be displayed on the poles formerly occupied by meters to be clearly visible, said Easton Police Chief Carl Scalzo.
Under both new systems, parking rates per hour will be the same for those who pay either by cash or by card—however the minimum payment amount will be $1 for those who pay with plastic.
The minimum is necessary to cover processing and wifi fees associated with card use, city officials said.
Times and rates in the city's parking deck on South Third Street will remain unchanged if the plan goes through, but a plan to offer parking in the deck to restaurant employees and others who work night hours Downtown would be put into place, with a suggested cost of $10 per month, Panto said.
City council members mostly offered no comments, having not yet had a chance to look at the proposed budget in detail Monday evening. However, Councilwoman El Warner seemed initially opposed to suggestion of an increase in rates and times.
“So I suppose we really don't need to approve this, since you've already ordered the machines?” she asked Panto.
The mayor said that with the changes already approved earlier this year by the council, passing the budget without changes would trigger the plan.
“So if we really don't want to go to 75c per hour, and we can find some alternative, we can do that,” Warner replied.
City budget documents indicate the city will receive almost $390,000 from parking meter fees and about $618,250 in parking fines this year. If the proposed budget is passed as presented, that revenue is estimated to climb to $500,000 in fees and about $625,000 annually in 2013.
The additional estimated $117,000 would go towards a proposed $355,000 that is earmarked to support the Greater Easton Development Partnership (GEDP) and the programs it oversees—the Easton Main Street Intiative, Easton Ambassadors and the Easton Farmers' Market, Panto said.
Also expected to be weighed concurrently, but separately from the budget discussions, is the possibility of extra fines for “lazy double parking” or penalizing those who double park when adjacent parking spots are readily available.
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