UPDATE: Following a public outcry led by retired Superior Court Judge Carmen Lopez, the city has revamped Downtown meter parking regulations including the length of stay before a transaction must occur and lowering of a fine from $40 to $25. The new policy starts Monday, June 19 at 8 am, according to mayoral aide Ed Adams.
News release from mayor’s office:
The City of Bridgeport today announced that the parameters for the grace period and fines of the Parking Meters will be adjusted. Based on feedback from the business community, local visitors, and downtown residents, the city has determined a need to modify the new parking meters. The City is also pleased to roll out the MPS Parking Meter mobile application, Sentry Mobile. This free innovative mobile application allows residents to see available parking spaces and buy time on an MPS Parking Meter with the meter display instantly updating to show the time remaining.
Changes to Parking Meter Rules
The City of Bridgeport has made four (4) changes to make the meters more visitor and business friendly. The period of time that a driver can be parked in a space before a violation is issued will be extend from 5 minutes to 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, the driver must insert payment of twenty-five cents per quarter hour, or vacate the space. Additionally, the period of time that a driver can be parked in a space after their paid time has run out will also be extended from 5 minutes to 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes post the paid-for time, the driver must insert payment of twenty five cents per quarter hour if the time has not been exceeded, or vacate the space. All parking meter fines will be reduced from $40 to $25 per violation. Finally, the stay time for all parking meters will be extended from 2 hours to 4 hours. Parking will remain free on Sundays, holidays, and every day after 6:00pm.
Sentry Mobile
The Sentry Mobile application is available in the APP Store for free. When the application is opened for the first time, users will be prompted to register by entering their name and email address and password. Once that is complete, users will have the opportunity to add money to their account from $10 to $50 using a credit or debit card. In order to pay for time on the meter, users must select the number of the meter where they are parking and then enter their license plate number. They will also select the amount of time they plan to stay from 15 minutes to the maximum allowed time, two hours. There is also a notice at the bottom of this screen informing the user that free parking starts at 6:00 p.m. Other features include an easy to view map of nearby meters including the parking spaces available.
The only time a parking meter is (business friendly) is when it’s removed with the help of a baseball bat!
Ban the meters NOW!
Glad to know about this. Thanks OIB
I wonder how this will impact the proposed resolutions from the city Council to have a One Year moratorium and to terminate the relationship with the meter management(L$$ mgmt). The City certainly acted much faster with the discussion of these resolutions.
What projections of revenues from new meters to the City after splitting with LAZ,etc. are in place or have been modified and how do they compare to 2017-18 budget approval?
Will any policy or process change with old meters? Will they also bear a $25 fine but be unable to be run for four hours by one person? Are there parking enforcement people attending to older meters? How many people? How many meters? Who manages supervision of same?
Are retail merchants who were present to support Judge Lopez’s appearance at the hearing and her attempt to be heard on more than one issue happy with the changes? Time will tell.
From the article,it seems everyone agrees that these meters were a mistake from the get go,and they need to go..except Joe..hmmm
Let’s be 100% clear, the mayor’s office has no authority whatsoever to implement these changes on Monday. The 3 major sticking points outside of the mobile app all require city council approval per changes of the town’s ordinance. Those ordinance changes were not filed in time with the city’s clerks office on Wednesday. This entire sham is in direct response to more meaningful resolutions to really solve our parking problem.
Today, several top mayoral aids spent all day chasing down our council men and woman asking them to consider a “Special Executive Action” to push these action items on Monday’s meeting and asking them to vote for and approve these “Fixes” that they never asked city council to discuss prior,but now realize they jumped the gun on by issuing a press release. They never consulted the city attorney’s office which could have let them know in advance they do not have the power to implement this without council knowledge and approval.
The question is , is it legal or is their precedence for the mayor to take such action and avoid due process of ordinance changes going before committees before moving back to the council for any actions are taken.
Ed Adams should be ashamed. Our once Accountability and Ethics director, turned Meter Guru, is now the ring leader of these unethical meetings and actions, all to save face and look like heroes. The administration still doesn’t understand that the Meters are just a “Symbol” of everything that’s wrong with wanting to do business in Bridgeport or attracting visitors, keeping residents, and giving Business a real shot at creating synergy to improve our non-thriving Downtown.
Thank you,
Not much left to say…