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Sep 26, 2023

Royal Oak’s street parking system still irks many businesses

A report from Royal Oak’s Downtown Development Authority that includes views

A report from Royal Oak's Downtown Development Authority that includes views from a number of downtown businesses shows they want to see changes made with the new parking system.

Royal Oak a couple years ago contracted with a private firm, Municipal Parking Services (MPS), which installed hundreds of its parking meters and began issuing tickets in Dec. 2021.

The system takes photos of license plates and sends violators tickets by mail. Early on, the system began drawing thousands of complaints from motorists and business owners alike.

Royal Oak still has four years to go on its five-year contract with MPS, a national company that only has contracts with only two other cities in Michigan, Flint and Hamtramck.

Daniel Hill, DDA manager, completed a report this month at the request of Mayor Michael Fournier and City Manager Paul Brake's office.

In his report Hill said many of the businesses that engaged in his study are located on Washington Avenue. Because there is angled parking on the avenue, the only way MPS's parking cameras could photograph license plates was to require motorists to back into spots.

That move further aggravated many motorists and downtown merchants.

Figures from City Engineer Holly Donoghue show there have been five auto crashes since back-in parking began during a period from November 2021 to September 2022. By comparison there were a total of five crashes over a period from December 2018 to May 2021 before back-in parking was made mandatory.

Hill noted Washington Avenue businesses are "seeing increased road rage incidents where there are outbursts from drivers … or honking for extended periods due to back-ups occurring from parkers backing into spaces."

Older customers find backing into spaces more difficult and they are visiting the district less.

Vehicle exhaust from backed-in vehicles effects those using outdoor sidewalk cafes

Annaka Norris, Main Street Oakland's liaison to Downtown Royal Oak, told Hill there are definite concerns with vehicle exhaust directly pointing at sidewalk cafes on Washington, Hill's report said.

"Many businesses … have expressed that their total bottom line has been impacted by the meter system downtown," Hill said in his report. "Many of the businesses have expressed that their total business is down between 20 percent and 50 percent from prior years."

Merchants told Hill their foot traffic and sales increased on Sundays and holidays, when the parking meter system is prohibited from issuing parking tickets.

"There are multiple businesses that have suggested they will seek to relocate outside of Downtown Royal Oak due to the current parking environment," Hill said.

The DDA Authority board contracted for a study from parking consultants Rich & Associates, which was presented last month.

Averaging out seven months of parking violations, the study found 43 percent of motorists who use the new on-street meters end up getting a violation either because they failed to pay within the first 5-minute grace period or stayed beyond the two-hour time limit.

"This is still very high," the report stated. "In any parking system, a high violation rate would very likely disenfranchise many downtown patrons."

Rich & Associates recommended the back-in parking model be converted to parallel parking.

A number of business owners are pushing to extend the 5-minute grace period to 15 minutes, and increase the maximum two-hour limit at meters to three hours.

Businesses are also getting pushback from their vendors and contractors on the parking system.

"They are finding it more difficult to have work done on their businesses as more vendors and contractors steer away from accepting work downtown due to parking issues and unloading needs for equipment and supplies," Hill said in his report.

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