Town officials last week approved contracts with two companies that have popular mobile parking apps.
The decision to offer motorists ParkMobile and Passport in addition to the town’s current mobile app for parking, PayByPhone, comes as the town prepares to change over to paid parking on the one-way stretch of Elm Street and sections of South Avenue downtown.
The town hopes to have the changeover completed by the end of this month, according to Parking Manager Stacy Miltenberg. Under the town’s plan, which is designed to free up coveted spaces for shoppers and diners, the Park Street Lot will switch to free parking.
Bringing in two more mobile apps to pay for parking “gives the consumer a choice,” Miltenberg told the Board of Selectmen during its regular meeting, held Sept. 16 at Town Hall and via videoconference.
“These are the three major players,” she said. “And that’s what a lot of municipalities and towns are going to—a multiple app-type of atmosphere, where people can come into town and use whatever app that they have.”
First Selectman Dionna Carlson and Selectmen Steve Karl and Amy Murphy Carroll voted 3-0 in favor of the contracts.
The town already uses Passport for its ticketing/permitting and the company takes 12% of all ticket revenue collected, under an existing agreement, Miltenberg said.
The selectmen asked about per-transaction and other fees charged by the companies (Passport 30 cents, ParkMobile 40 cents, PayByPhone 30 cents with an additional 20-cent charge for those seeking alerts and email reminders about their parking expiration), whether there are more transaction fees when users extend their parking time (yes), whether the Parking Bureau will enforce a parking time limit in the Park Street Lot even after it’s free (yes, just as it does now on Elm Street) and how long people would need to leave the Park Street Lot to “restart” the clock (one hour).
Karl asked about the timing of the changeover.
Miltenberg said that the pay-by-plate machines would be delivered within two days and “once we take possession of the machines … they’re going to put out a request [for proposals] for the installations.”
“We’re hoping, again, end of September,” she said, adding: “I am pushing to make sure everything changes over to pay-by-plate. We want to do it all together. Just to let everyone know, our current mobile app is a little ahead of us because we wanted to start that. So in the lots, slowly, we’re turning over to pay-by-plate. A lot of people using the PayByPhone mobile app right now will start noticing it’s going to request a plate number instead of a space number. So they [PayByPhone] are a little ahead of us.”
Carlson noted that the “pads” where the machines will be installed should all be ready “by the end of this week.” Four pads have been installed already, she said.
“The pads are in, they have to clean up the bricks around it, and then they’ll go and do the remaining five [pads] and then clean up the bricks around [them], as well,” she said. “So the pads should be ready.”