More parking kiosks, less fraud investigation
by Lori Barrett | June 2, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Posted in baltimore politics
The Baltimore City Council will vote tonight on whether to approve $2.4 million to install 280 more “parking kiosks” throughout the city. The new kiosks will be installed primarily in Waverly, Govans, and Greektown.
The kiosks replace old-style meters and allow parkers to pay with cash or credit cards. The city already has 427 kiosks in various neighborhoods, which are credited with raising meter revenues by 50 percent since their installation — totaling $6.6 million last year.
Parking citations, however, have declined since the kiosks’ installation — a fact that has not deterred the city from planning to install even more.
On a related note, the investigation into the fake tickets issued by Baltimore City parking enforcement agents has “stalled” — possibly forever. Last year, the Inspector General, Hilton Green, was asked to investigate complaints (nearly 100, by last count) from residents who received tickets in the mail for locations in which they were not parked at the time in question.
So far, one agent was fired for issuing fraudulent tickets, but Green took a leave of absence in the middle of the investigation. He’s been out for four months now and officials are unsure if he will return to his position — also leaving the fate of the six-month investigation in question.
Maybe the decline in citations is not related to the kiosks after all…
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June 3rd, 2008 at 1:48 pm | Please log in to reply. | Log in to rate this comment | report this comment
The problem is they put these bull**** things everywhere. For instance they have them on West University Parkway by Hopkins. Perhaps they are okay during the day when there are students parking there but allowing them to operate in the evening is simply ridiculous. And they don't take $ bills, just credit cards and coins.
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:22 pm | Please log in to reply. | Log in to rate this comment | report this comment
I have one on my street. The enforcement hours aren't posted on it, so even though the city only tickets until 6 p.m., people are always feeding the meter after hours. I try to stop them when I can, but it's no wonder revenues are up if this is a common problem.
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:26 pm | Please log in to reply. | Log in to rate this comment | report this comment
I also learned a few interesting things while I was in court for a ticket I received (while waiting around the corner for the Safelite people to come when my car had been broken into and was parked after 10am in a street cleaning zone, 2900 block of calvert) a little while back.
The judge, who was a state judge on rotation to handle city parking tickets due to the fact that something like 50,000 of them were "found" from many many months to years back resulting in total bedlam, was all too happy to complain out loud to everyone in the courtroom as to how the city is completely f*cking up their ticket situation.
People were in court with backdated late fees in the thousands, and they never even knew they had them until they had to update registration on their car or they were booted.
Yeah the parking kiosks? I guess at this point it may be common knowledge, but if you try to pay at one and it for some reason is broken, you're not supposed to park there. They will ticket you. Also, "feeding the meter" is now limited to one feed only, you can't come out every two hours and pay say three times over the course of the day. They will ticket you.
And if you have a house on an alleyway, you're no longer allowed to park in the alleyway. People have been doing it for generations and they recently decided it should be illegal and everyone has to park on the street where they can ticket you some more.
Lori, I'd print something out in large font and tape it to the kiosk (obviously not in sight of officials or they might nab you for vandalism no doubt) so at least people won't get ripped off by the city quite as frequently.
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:38 pm | Please log in to reply. | Log in to rate this comment | report this comment
Good idea, Evan, I think I will do that. I've called/emailed 311 a number of times over the past few years to tell them about the problem. Clearly that is not the way to approach it.
June 7th, 2008 at 9:41 am | Please log in to reply. | Log in to rate this comment | report this comment
Lori, I read your article on parking and a fraud investigation. I live in Pennsylvania and received a parking ticket from the City of Baltimore. I have never been to the City of Baltimore. What is going on down there?