(No caption)
Photo: Deadline Detroit
Not so long ago a lot of the parking meters in Detroit were broken and people parked on the street for free, costing the city serious revenue. Parking fines were also cheaper.
Things have changed.
Matt Helms of the Detroit Free Press writes that parking tickets, which jumped from $35 to $45, and the new, high-tech meter system,which includes a mobile app, have made Detroit’s Municipal Parking Department relatively flush.
Helms writes:
Gone are the days when the city was spending about as much on processing tickets as it was on bringing in revenue from them. Revenue from parking tickets is up 30% this fiscal year compared to 2014, to $13 million, according to department figures provided to the Free Press.
Revenue per ticket written is up to about $55 (including late fees), compared to about $35 before the price hike.
But revenue from parking meters is up even more, by 127%, at $4.2 million for the current fiscal year. Meters that frequently broke down have been replaced by new electronic versions that accept cash and credit cards and payment by the ParkDetroit smartphone app. The department expects meter revenue to rise to $4.7 million in 2017.
“We’re doing pretty well,” municipal parking Director Norm White said last week.
Yet the department is writing fewer tickets these days, down by about 15%, since the city a year ago launched its $3.5-million parking system using electronic kiosks.
It’s a major turnaround for a department that frequently frustrated drivers with 3,000 meters, as many as half of which weren’t working at any given time in recent years. The city replaced them with about 500 kiosks that are easier to maintain, driving down costs for the department.
