The River Market parking meters in downtown Little Rock have needed repair at least 11 times since they were installed less than a year ago.
Recently, half of the meters were out of order for weeks, and one is still not working.
The city paid $92,575.44 to purchase eight "pay and display" meters installed along President Clinton Avenue in October for parking patrons in the River Market area. Another $7,200 was spent on installing the meters and training staff to repair them.
Instead of inserting coins into an individual meter assigned to a parking space, drivers search for the nearest electronic pay and display meter for payment. The meter issues a ticket that has an expiration time stamped on it. The ticket is to be placed inside the vehicle on the driver's side of the dashboard, visible from the front window.
In June, two of the meters stopped working, followed by another two in late July.
The city's Public Works Department is unable to fix broken meters until replacement parts are shipped by Duncan Solutions, department Director Jon Honeywell said. Three of the four broken meters were repaired and put back into operation Aug. 8, but the part to fix the fourth has yet to arrive.
Public Works hasn't kept a list of how often its maintenance crew has had to perform repairs since the meters were put in place in October, Operations Manager Eric Petty said Monday.
Honeywell said, "We do not have anything to quantify how frequently the meters are not working or how that has affected revenue."
Invoices from Duncan Solutions show that parts were shipped to repair the pay stations 11 times since they were installed. The machines are still under a one-year warranty, so the repair parts have not cost the city any money.
Renewing the warranty for another year would cost $4,000. The city doesn't know whether it would be cheaper to renew the warranty or purchase replacement parts as needed, Petty said, adding that the city doesn't know how much the parts cost.
When a machine isn't working, a white flier instructs drivers to pay their parking fees at the next closest machine. But City Manager Bruce Moore informed city directors at a recent Board of Directors meeting that parking officials don't write parking citations when the machines are out of order.
Despite half of the meters being inoperable from late July to early August, parking fee revenue last month was up over the rest of the year.
The city brought in about $8,000 in January and again in February, about $9,000 in March, close to $10,000 in April, $9,000 in May, about $10,500 in June and then close to $12,000 in July. Before the electronic meters, parking in the River Market District was free.
Petty didn't speculate about why revenue went up in July when so many meters weren't working, aside from saying that drivers are told to pay at other working meters when the closest meter is out.
He acknowledged that "the machines have experienced more downtime than anticipated."
"Public Works has had discussions with Duncan Solutions concerning the performance of the meters and has been assured Duncan Solutions is working to solve the reliability issues with the meters," Petty said.
The parking meters run a "self-check" daily and report issues that need to be addressed electronically to the maintenance staff.
Metro on 08/19/2014