The city purchased 16 multi-space pay stations for downtown parking in November.

The equipment has arrived in Great Falls and city officials are discussing the plan for installation and rollout of the new parking pay system.

Craig Raymond, city planning director, said that he sent a request on Jan. 21 to City Manager Greg Doyon asking permission to rollout the new parking equipment in the spring.

The Parking Advisory Commission discussed options for rolling out the new equipment during their Jan. 21 meeting, but Raymond said he hasn’t yet gotten word from Doyon so the details are still in flux.

Board recommends new management contract for parking operations

The new pay stations are multi-space electronic pay stations, 14 of which will be installed on Central Avenue and two will be in the city’s parking garages.

The city also purchased license plate recognition equipment and software, as well as parking enforcement and back-end software.

City approves purchase of new parking meters, LPR technology and associated fees

The city has resumed parking enforcement with fines for violations of the two-hour time limit and other infractions, but parking has been free since March when city staff suspended the fee due to COVID-19 in an effort to support downtown businesses doing curbside and delivery operations.

City considering fees associated with modern parking enforcement technology

The Parking Advisory Commission had discussed the possibility of switching to modern meters for years, but after a March 2020 break-in at the parking office in the North Parking Garage, the conversation picked up steam. During the break-in, a meter key went missing, which gave access to all of the city’s parking meters and the money inside of them.

The key was later recovered by a maintenance worker checking the elevator mechanical room.

City moving forward with plans for license plate readers, pay stations for downtown parking

Since the city wasn’t able to rekey the meters, staff worked on alternate plans to replace the meters with newer, modern pay stations and use license plate reader technology for parking enforcement.

City considering license plate recognition, pay stations for downtown parking enforcement

In June, the Parking Advisory Commission voted to recommend that plan. The new technology comes with an upfront cost, but also an estimated cost savings over time, according to city staff.

Craig Raymond, city planning director, said the upfront cost of the new equipment in year one is about $170,500.

Downtown parking enforcement resumes June 22

The multi-space pay stations will be coupled with license plate reader technology and equipment. With LPR, “cameras are mounted to a vehicle and connected to a computer inside the vehicle. The system continually scans vehicle license plates, communicates with the multi-space pay stations and the mobile payment app., and will alert the driver when a vehicle has either not paid, their session has expired, or they have stayed in the same spot for over 2-hours. Once the driver receives the alert, they may stop the vehicle to write and print a citation. The significant advantage of adopting LPR technology is the speed, efficiency, and accuracy of covering the downtown parking enforcement district compared to patrolling on foot,” according to the city staff report.

Parking board votes to resume two-hour enforcement downtown

The city will also have to write and adopt a LPR operations and policy manual, as required by state law, that specifies how the technology is to be used and what limitations will strictly be adhered to when LPR is being used.

“Some communities across the United States have chosen to utilize LPR to assist in the identification and reporting to authorities of stolen vehicles. In some cases, as the enforcement vehicle would roll along, the cameras would read a license plate that would have been reported as a stolen vehicle and law enforcement would be notified. In Great Falls, this practice will not be permitted and a policy manual will be written to discourage any such unauthorized use of the capabilities that exist with LPR technology,” according to the staff report.

The new parking related fees will pass some of the additional costs onto those who use the parking system, versus absorbing those costs into the parking fund, which has dwindling reserves, mostly due to COVID.

Raymond said in October that the parking system’s reserve fund was about $493,000 in March but as of November it was about $350,000. He said that typically, the program brings in $25,000 to $35,000 monthly from meter revenue, but the city hasn’t been charging for metered parking since March.

The parking fund is an enterprise fund, meaning the parking program is supported by fees and fines for parking, not tax dollars from the city general fund.

City continuing with plan to upgrade to pay stations, license plate readers for downtown parking

The city has selected Passport Parking, which already serves as the city’s contractor for the mobile parking app, to handle those software aspects and the company uses a cost recovery structure the puts certain costs and fees on those users that use elements of the software versus spreading the entire cost equally across all users, according to the city.

Downtown group asks city to convert one-ways to two-way traffic

For example, the users who receive parking citations are assessed a $3 citation management platform fee, on top of their normal timed parking violation fine of $5, $10, $20 or $100.

Those who are cited and don’t pay the fine and fee within 30 days will be assessed a 25 percent fee above the total amount, according to the staff report.

City moving forward with plans for license plate readers, pay stations for downtown parking

Additional fees will accumulate based on costs associated with letters and invoices sent and other collections efforts or the appeal process, according to the city staff report.

The proposal also includes a monthly $2.50 fee for those who purchase monthly parking passes for the garages or surface lots.

Parking meter key recovered, city considering options

The transaction fee for mobile payments for parking will be increased by 10 cents from a quarter to 35 cents.

The city has been looking at transitioning to the new pay stations and digital methods for parking enforcement after a series of events in the spring.

City considering license plate recognition, pay stations for downtown parking enforcement

The city also has the Passport Parking smartphone app that allows people to pay for parking from their mobile phones. Raymond said usage has increased for the app, but the city is continuing to work on raising awareness of that option.

Downtown parking enforcement resumes June 22

The city parking program has long struggled and in recent years made adjustment to the fees and fine structures to generate more revenue for needed repairs at the city’s two public garages. Discussion of replacing the older meters with newer technologies has been ongoing for years, but the events of early 2020 demonstrated that “certain failures are catastrophic to the health of the program fund balance and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances,” according to city staff.

Parking board votes to resume two-hour enforcement downtown

The suspension of most parking enforcement during the stay-home order and lack of parking enforcement caused a substantial decrease in the fund balance for the parking program since March. City staff is recommending the establishment of these user fees “so that traditional revenue streams can continue to be committed to operations and facility maintenance and improvements as we continue to recover from the economic consequence of suspending certain activities and fees while supporting the downtown businesses during the COVID pandemic,” according to the staff report.

Parking meter heads removed due to break-in at city parking office; theft of meter keys

The city ceased parking meter enforcement, effective March 19, due to the COVID-19 outbreak and resumed enforcement of the two-hour time limit June 22 but the meters have not been re-installed, meaning it’s free to park downtown currently, but the two-hour time limit is being enforced.

City approves parking meter increase for downtown Great Falls

Most of the user fees will pass through to Passport Parking but 10 cents of each 35 cent mobile payment for parking fee will remain with the city to help cover associated costs associated with merchant service fees and credit card transactions that the city will incur for offering the convenient payment options to customers, according to city staff.