Paid parking is currently suspended in downtown St. Joseph following an announcement Monday by City Manager Emily Hackworth.
At Monday’s city commission meeting, Hackworth said it was brought to her attention last week, by a resident, that the locations of some of the parking pay stations are not ADA-compliant. That’s because some of them are positioned on parking lot medians, making them too tall. Hackworth confirmed the issue Friday and now Abonmarche has been brought in to evaluate all of the pay stations to make sure standards are being met.
So, how did this even happen? Without directly blaming them, Hackworth said vendor called Traffic and Safety Control Systems, Incorporated installed the machines.
“We had a contractor who came in to do the installation, and I think some assumptions were made that it was handled,” Hackworth said. “And clearly, we need to build out a process where we have more due diligence.”
Hackworth said moving forward, checks for ADA compliance with purchases like these pay stations will be done by the city. In the meantime, it’s not yet known if the city will get a break from the vendor on the cost of relocating the pay stations that are not in compliance.
Amid the outcry from downtown business owners opposed to paid parking, Hackworth says the city is using this pause to meet with them. She met with one so far Tuesday morning and planned many more meetings. Hackworth says this could very well result in changes to the paid parking program once it’s resumed.
“We know that there are concerns. The program was meant to solve a problem that we have long heard about, which is congestion in the downtown, which in turn was supposed to benefit business owners. If that’s not what businesses are experiencing, we need to address it.”
Commissioners have also vowed to use the pause to continue talking with downtown merchants.
Once Abonmarche is done with its review of all parking pay stations, Traffic and Safety will move the ones that need to be moved. For now, though, it’s totally free to park in downtown St. Joseph.