Memorandum

City of Lawrence

Police Department

TO:	Thomas M. Markus, City Manager
CC:	Toni Wheeler, City Attorney Vicki Stanwix, Municipal Court Administrator Tarik Khatib, Chief of Police Teri Pierce, Parking and Animal Control
FROM:	Captain Adam Heffley
DATE:	June 28, 2016
RE:	Overtime Parking Meter Fines

Background

The City of Lawrence utilizes parking meters in the downtown area in order to provide open parking spaces for visitors, to reduce congestion on the streets caused by drivers circling while looking for parking spots, and to a lesser extent, generate revenue to support city services utilized by visitors to the area. The fine schedule for overtime parking meter violations was set in July of 2009 at $3.00 in order to encourage compliance with the meter system and turnover of the parking space.

In 2015, Parking Control Officers (PCOs) issued 102,141 meter violation citations with 71,183 paid within the allotted 10 day time frame. The revenue generated from those citations represented $213,549. During the previous three years the “paid on-time” percentage has held between 68%-70%. The goal of the program is to find the balance to achieve the desired behavioral modification through compliance with the meter system and turnover of parking spots, while avoiding a cooling affect and pushing parking from the downtown area into adjacent lots and streets. 

A comparison to other communities with parking meter programs shows the City of Lawrence is currently low in the fine costs associated with meter violations. The City of Topeka assesses a $15 fine for meter violations in their parking program. Manhattan, Kansas will soon be raising the fine from $5 to $15, and Boulder, Colorado currently assesses a $15 fine as part of their parking program.     

Discussion

The increased effectiveness of the meter program as a product of the fine increase is difficult to estimate. Additional revenue potential is also difficult to determine due to the likely increased adherence to the metered parking process. This is the desired result of the program and so would be beneficial to the stakeholders who operate in the area and use the downtown parking spaces.     If we use the 2015 Overtime Parking Meter Citation numbers, raising the fine from $3.00 to $5.00 would have generated an additional $142,366 without staffing level changes.

Ordinance No. 9266 increases the fines and fees for overtime meter parking. The ordinance increases the following penalties:

1. Overtime meter parking increases from $3.00 to $5.00.

2. Failure to pay the $5.00 penalty within 10 days increases the penalty to $20, up from a $15 minimum.

3. A person who is a habitual violator and commits a new offense of 17-305 or 17-306 (overtime meter parking) would be fined $75 instead of $50.

Action

Adopt on first reading Ordinance No. 9266, amending City of Lawrence, Kan. Code §§ 17-304 pertaining to parking meters, if appropriate.