Parking 101 in downtown
LOREN BENOIT/Press Coeur d’Alene’s new parking enforcement vehicle, outfitted with cameras and a GPS system, makes its rounds Tuesday in the city’s downtown area.
By RALPH BARTHOLDT
Staff Writer
COEUR d’ALENE — The city’s old parking regulations have caused new fervor among motorists who keep their cars on downtown streets.
“I dealt with two people and the customer service department heard from one person who was upset and didn’t know the rules,” Deputy City Administrator Sam Taylor said Wednesday.
The consternation is caused by a city ordinance that has been in place for a decade and requires motorists to move their vehicles 300 feet every two hours if they want to take advantage of free parking on the city’s downtown streets.
What aggravates the situation is a small, plucky new car that, inside its minuscule chassis, contains a computer system that uses cameras and a GPS to track parking perpetrators.
The $18,000 Toyota Yaris, purchased by the city of Coeur d’Alene, replaces a blue, meter maid mobile used by Diamond Parking — the city’s vendor — which once crawled around downtown streets as the driver marked tires and kept a lookout for violators.
“The enforcement officer chalked tires and used his own memory and notations to track vehicles,” Taylor said.
No more.
The clear-eyed camera lens and computer software of the Yaris’ license plate recognition system makes sure no car on either side of the street parks within 300 feet of its earlier parking spot — that’s about one city block.
That means in an eight-hour workday, a car must be moved four times and cannot park within 300 feet of any of its previous spots.
“It’s pretty fancy,” Taylor said.
And it’s efficient. When it locates a violator, the system immediately notifies the enforcement officer.
By 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, the city had issued 25 parking tickets.
Along with the latest technology, the city has adopted a tiered ticketing system in which a first-time violator gets a pass in the form of a “courtesy” ticket. It reminds motorists of the rules and the cost of future tickets for downtown street violations.
A second-time violation will garner a ticket that costs $15, a third-time violator gets a $20 ticket and after that, citations cost $25.
That’s up from the previous $10 citation.
“There were no tiers, no courtesy tickets. Everyone just got a ticket,” Taylor said.
Parking lot violations are $20 across the board.
Enforcement officers still use their savvy and code book for other infractions, like catching people who park within 30 feet of intersections or motorists who fail to obey signs.