J Magazine Winter 2018

Archie Fraizer puts money into one of the new
sensor technology parking meters after he parked
outside the Yates building in Downtown Jacksonville.
The city reaches its 37 percent average
only because of the large number of public
spaces open in parking garages. During peak
hours, only 12 percent of curbside parking
spaces are available throughout the entire
urban core, according to the same study.
The lack of curbside spaces registers with
drivers.
A 2017 Times-Union survey showed
10 percent of people say they don’t come
Downtown more often because they find
it hard to park. Thirteen percent cited
more and better parking as one of the
top things they’d implement to improve
Downtown.
Five years ago Shad, who wrote his
master’s thesis on Downtown Jacksonville
parking, recommended raising fees at
curbside meters. It would drive Downtown
workers who feed the meter all day long into
parking garages, freeing up space for those
who need to get a curbside space to attend
a midday meeting, eat lunch or buy a cup of
coffee.
But both Democrat and Republican
administrations have been uncomfortable
with increasing any taxes or fees.
Hughes said he wants instead to enforce
the 2-hour time limit — which is on most
parking meters — before he considers raising
meter fees.
“I’d rather we focus on trying to use other
processes and technological innovations to
control space before we increase pricing,” he
said.
Indeed, new technology can help with
“People are
so creative
in avoiding
penalties. We
did chalking to
track who was
overstaying.
You’d have
whole offices
that would send
one guy down to
wipe off all the
chalk marks.”
JACK SHAD
URBAN PLANNING
CONSULTANT
parking enforcement. But it can also do
more.
New “smart” parking meters
are equipped with sensors that can
electronically record when a vehicle is
parked in a space and how long it stays. Five
years ago, Shad tested an early version of the
sensors on several of Downtown’s busiest
corridors.
Last summer Jacksonville’s Office of
Public Parking deployed another test group
of sensors that are more advanced on meters
along a one-block stretch of Forsyth Street
and another block on Market Street.
Depending on what city policymakers
decide, the sensors can help Downtown
drivers with curbside parking in three ways.
Through the magic of the internet, the
sensors can communicate with an app
that tells drivers where the empty parking
spaces are Downtown. That just sounds cool
to a frustrated driver circling along a busy
corridor looking for parking.
The sensors can also verify whether a car
has been at a spot longer than two hours.
Right now, the city relies on enforcement
officers who drive by crowded parking areas
and record license plates and tire positions
with cameras.
The real power of the sensors, though,
is as an aid to city planning. They can track,
down to the level of a single parking space,
how much Downtown parking is being
used and which places are the busiest. That
data could be used to set up a pricing policy
customized down to the block level.
Cities like San Francisco and Seattle
have already done this. There smart
parking meters helped craft a system of
tiered parking fees that keeps 15 percent of
curbside spaces vacant on any given block.
The meters change prices, block by block,
according to their location, time of day and
day of the week.
Whether Jacksonville raises fees at
meters or simply works harder to enforce
the two-hour time limit is a carrot-or-stick
kind of a proposition. Both could work. But
there are reasons to choose the carrot.
Enforcement, the stick, has always been
a tricky play, said Shad.
“People are so creative in avoiding
penalties,” he said. “We did chalking to
track who was overstaying, but it was very
imprecise. You’d have whole offices that
would send one guy down to wipe off all the
chalk marks.”
It may be politically difficult to raise fees.
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J MAGAZINE | WINTER 2018-19