More Parking Meters On Their Way

City parking revenue is up 20 percent from last year already, and Easton wants to  continue the upward financial trend  by adding more metered parking in the city.

City officials Tuesday they will temporarily add about 66 parking spots on South Third Street this summer after the demolition of the former Perkins restaurant and Marquis Theatre.

City employees will park there instead of the city parking deck for the summer, and the site will also have between 25 and 50 metered spots for the public as well, City Administrator Glenn Steckman said at Tuesday's city council workshop.

The city will lease the Perkins site from the city parking authority for $1 for this year only, Steckman said.

“By the following summer, it should be a construction site,” he said. The location is to be the home of the.

By adding more meters, the city hopes to increase parking revenue by 15 percent. Steckman said the city could also extend the current 2-hour limit on many of its meters to three hours.

Meanwhile, the city's first 'gang meter' may be tried later this year in the city's South Third Street parking lot near Pine Street, said Mayor Sal Panto. The meter will take payments for the entire lot and will also accept paper bills, credit and debit cards for payment, he said. If it is successful, similar meters may monitor other appropriate city parking lots, or even currently individually metered city blocks, officials said.

Officials also plan to finally install parking meters on Union Street near the Northampton County Courthouse. Their plannned placement has been delayed due to construction and about 30 to 35 new meters will be installed, they said.

Free parking for the city's river park goers is likely to end too, as Panto said spots adjacent to Riverside and Scott Parks will be metered to prevent non-park-goers from taking advantage of the situation any longer.

“It's the only free parking in the city and it's not fair to the people who are paying,” Panto said.

Officials plan to spend about $30,000 on new parking enforcement equipment this year in total, much of it on new 'smart meter' technology. An additional $1,000 will be spent to rent a machine to reprogram existing smart meters to reflect the proposed new 3-hour time limit, the city administrator said.

“The difference with the smart meter system is that it's an information system as well. It tells us where there are large swaths of parking spots that are going unpaid,” Steckman said, adding the new meters even know when money was deposited and can send that information to the city. The smart meters cut down on 'civilian complaints', and also allow the city to ensure meter enforcement personnel are doing their jobs, he said.

Currently, the city has about 986 metered parking spaces with six part-time parking enforcement officials on staff. Metered parking revenue generates an estimated $360,000 for the city's general fund annually, and about $500,000 in parking fines of all sorts, not just overtime parking, are taken in by the city in an average year, Steckman said. Enforcement, which is paid for by the city's general fund, costs about $110,000 per year.

Despite the amount generated by fines, Steckman said the city is not dependent on that income.

“I don't balance a budget based on fines,” he said. “We'd rather people feed the meters like they're supposed to.”

An ad hoc parking task force made up of city officials and representatives from the business community is scheduled to meet on March 21 at 9 a.m. in the mayor's conference room to make recommendations for changes to city parking regulations to city council.

Steckman said the committee will only discuss a change in meter time-limits at the meeting.

“It will remain at 50 cents (per hour),” he said of most metered parking locations in the city. “We are allowed to take it up to a dollar around the courthouse, but that's not been decided yet.”