The Trenton Times published the following article on April 27, 2013. To read the full article, click here.

Department of Community Affairs orders Trenton to update its parking system

By Erin Duffy/The Times of Trenton 
on April 27, 2013 at 7:15 AM, updated April 27, 2013 at 7:25 AM

TRENTON — The city’s coin-fed parking meters are old and temperamental and the chances of being slapped with a parking ticket downtown are slim to none, problems that officials attribute to layoffs of meter readers and limited enforcement by the stretched-thin staff who remain.

A parking network that could be a money-making asset for the city is instead splintered and poorly managed, according to the state Department of Community Affairs, which has ordered Trenton to come up with a new, more profitable plan to manage the system.

As a condition of a $25.4 million aid award from the state, the city has been ordered by the DCA to work with the Trenton Parking Authority and a parking consultant to draft a new parking plan that would beef up enforcement and the collection of parking fees.
The new blueprint is due July 1. But Trenton business administrator Sam Hutchinson said that, while the city is taking preliminary steps to improve parking, any new plan will take time.

“Any action with respect to the parking is honestly about five or six months away,” he said.

The DCA has called the parking system fractured and inefficient, full of redundancies and with a poor record of enforcing metered spaces, which as a result are not bringing in enough money for the cash-strapped city.

“There has been inadequate parking enforcement such as old and inefficient meters, and closing of garages while other nearby parking options were being considered,” DCA spokeswoman Tammori Petty said in an e-mail. “Additionally, there are two agencies responsible for parking. Parking is a major asset that should be managed using a streamlined approach with those who truly understand parking issues.”

Divided oversight

Responsibility for the system is divided between the parking utility in the city’s Division of Traffic and Transportation, which oversees street parking, metered spots and several surface lots, and Trenton Parking Authority (TPA), which administers four downtown parking garages and one surface lot. The authority is run by a director and overseen by a board appointed by the mayor and City Council.

Former Mayor Art Holland created the split system decades ago when the parking authority refused to back a garage he wanted built at the corner of Broad and Front streets, officials said. The state also owns several surface lots.

Cities often put their parking operations under different agencies, but the trend is toward consolidated systems, said Jim Zullo, the former head of the New Brunswick Parking Authority. Zullo is vice president of Timothy Haahs & Associates, Inc, a parking engineering and consulting firm that has worked Camden, New Brunswick and other cities.

“The industry best practices really advises having a single responsibility center and it can take any one of those forms, an authority, a utility, or a city department,” he said.
Hutchinson said parking enforcement officers in Trenton answered to his department, administration, until last month, when he shifted them into the police department, which he called a better fit. But he agreed that the parking system needs more work.

“Our parking plan and parking system definitely needs to be updated,” Hutchinson said. “A lot of our parking meters are old … and then there’s, because of our shortage of resources, there are many parking violations that simply aren’t being enforced.”

Trenton Parking Authority executive director Walter Smith said his agency is more than willing to work with Trenton to share ideas, and possibly revenues.

“We’re aware of the responsibilities the city has, and it’s difficult and challenging to give parking the full attention,” Smith said. “We’re the parking authority. That’s what we do, so we can give this 100 percent of our attention.”

Before anything else is done, a city-wide parking study needs to be conducted, Smith said.

“The assessment will lead and drive the conversation on how the city and parking authority can move forward,” he said. “It would take a current look at the meters, the personnel, the revenue brought in and the total assessment of what the parking utility and the authority control.”

Neither he nor Hutchinson could estimate how much a parking audit might cost.

Authority seeks to expand

Over the last six months or so, Smith and Hutchinson have had preliminary talks about ways to improve the city’s portion of parking assets, Hutchinson said. Ideas include farming out enforcement to the parking authority or to a third-party vendor, as the city is trying to do with tax lien collections, or finding the money to install credit card swipe meters or meter kiosks of the type used in Washington D.C. and Philadelphia.

The TPA has not been shy about its desire to take over management of all the city’s parking, Hutchinson said.

“The parking authority would like to help and would certainly like to have all the parking assigned to the authority,” he said. “I’m not there yet. I do want to see what’s out there.”
The parking authority tried to broker a deal last year in which the city would sell its parking meters and other assets to the authority for $500,000, the amount needed to cover an operating shortfall at the city-owned Trenton Marriott.

Former TPA chairman Bill Watson, who was involved in the negotiations, said the authority agreed to take over the meters, invest in some upgrades and enter into some kind of revenue-sharing agreement with the city, similar to other parking deals that have been struck in Newark and elsewhere.

City officials later said they never entertained any sale offer and the plan collapsed.

Watson said the new mandate from the DCA might revive those talks.

“The parking authority, that’s what its business is, parking,” Watson said. “The commissioners stay up on technology, are lobbied by different organizations bringing in new technologies, attend conferences where they can see these new ideas at work.”
“If that’s your primary mission, you’ll do that one. If parking is one of your 100 missions you have in running a city, that may be low on the totem poll, especially when you’re short-staffed,” he said.

Money lost, investment needed

Hutchinson said a major component of any new parking plan must be enhanced enforcement, as too many drivers get away with excessive numbers of infractions, from not feeding meters to using phony handicapped tags to avoid parking fees. Under state law, cars with handicapped parking permits cannot be ticketed for expired meters.

“We’re losing money by virtue of the fact that we simply cannot get tickets out,”
Hutchinson said.

The has about four parking enforcers who have to crisscross the city, covernig both the crowded downtown and residential neighborhoods where cars may not block driveways or street sweepers.

“I met with parking enforcement officers and the police department and asked enforcement be stepped up,” Hutchinson said.

Zullo said any city taking a fresh look at its parking configuration should first do a study and examine its rate structure. The current going rate for meters in most cities is about $1 an hour, he said.

Many cities are trying to phase out coin-operated meters because they are often inconvenient, turning instead to credit card-operated meters or payment kiosks. In Camden, Zullo is implementing a pilot program for a pay-by-cell program, he said.

Drivers set up a parking account like E-ZPass and use their phones to log into a parking spot and pay. The system allows drivers to feed expiring meters remotely and avoid the hassle of rooting around for change.

However, as with other improvements, upgrading parking systems can be expensive.
“A lot of these, implementing these technologies, it’s not cheap,” he said. “It costs money, it requires investment.”

Contact Erin Duffy at (609) 989-5723 or eduffy@njtimes.com.