Getting There: Spokane to swap out recently installed downtown parking meters

May 5—For the second time in as many years, new parking meters are coming to downtown Spokane.

The city of Spokane will replace 200 dual-space meters installed in 2022 with 400 single-space meters starting Monday. The swap is intended to alleviate concerns for local businesses, users and the department's troubles with the reservation process for street parking spaces, said Code Enforcement and Parking Services Director Luis Garcia.

The mass replacement is a continuation of the city's ongoing efforts to modernize and standardize Spokane's entire on-street parking system.

A city-conducted study and subsequent master plan published in 2019 identified the lack of uniformity for the various parking payment systems as one of the top challenges facing downtown street parking.

To help alleviate that concern, the plan called for removing outdated meters and equipment, and establishing a cohesive payment system and branding for the city-owned parking services.

"Whenever we did the first meter installation with those dual-space meters, they were also intended for a streetscape benefit, to have less devices out there," Garcia said. "It was supposed to be an enhancement overall."

Garcia said after the meters went up, the city ran into challenges with the system used to block off spaces when downtown businesses need room for deliveries, tour buses or parties at their location.

The reservations are bought most frequently by businesses in the areas where the dual meters were installed, Garcia said. In particular, the city ran into a string of issues in the Entertainment District, which hosts the Fox Theater, the Knitting Factory and the Bing Crosby Theater.

"One of the challenges we were having is, say we put a meter hood or a placard up," Garcia said, "you're essentially taking away two spaces."

Knitting Factory general manager Kent Shelton said the reservation system just didn't work as well as the system that was in place before the dual meters went up, which has meant headaches for him and his staff.

Venues like the Knitting Factory used to be able to purchase bags from the city that they were allowed to put on themselves whenever they needed to block off space for incoming tour buses, but the bags were replaced with small placards when the dual meters were installed.

"I'm glad that they're doing something because that has been a real challenge," Shelton said. "But a system that seemed to have worked for 15 years has been really, really messed up since 2022."

There's a couple of noticeable issues with the placards, Shelton said. Drivers don't seem to notice them as much, which would cover an entire meter, and so they'll park and pay for a spot only to wind up getting towed.

There's also more labor required of city workers, who put up the placards themselves instead of allowing the businesses to do so. Shelton said there's been instances where the placards didn't go up in time.

"People just parked at them," Shelton said. "The meters weren't turned off or anything, and people could still put money in them and pay for parking. Then we would have to call the city out to tow cars away, and then people would be mad because they had money in a meter and they had two hours on it, and they got towed away because they didn't see a little cardboard sign."

Garcia said his department noticed there was a learning curve for downtown drivers when they transitioned to placards, but placing them higher where a hood would have gone seemed to alleviate that issue.

"With that being said, there is no doubt that a more apparent delineation may serve the parker better," Garcia said in an emailed response.

Shelton and other venue managers would need to book reservations months in advance under the new system, which means they often ended up paying for more than they needed. It was easier to block off only the required spaces when they could bag the meters themselves, Shelton said.

"We just couldn't seem to make the new system work," Shelton said. "We don't want to infuriate people either by towing their car away, we'd rather have them know that they can't park there."

Shelton said he and other leaders at the Knitting Factory met with the city multiple times over the past two years to share their frustrations with the system. He said city employees informed him more than a year ago that new bags had been ordered, ones that had a window to allow the solar-powered meters to function.

But the switch back to bags has yet to happen, because the ones the city purchased did not fit the new meters, Shelton said.

Garcia confirmed the city had run into a sizing issue with the bags they purchased, and said they plan to roll out a pilot program in the Entertainment District to see if the switch back is easier for downtown parkers to navigate, and easier on the businesses who need the spaces. Parking Services will administer and manage the hoods, rather than renting them out to the venues.

The bags the city already purchased will not fit the new meters either, so the city will need to wait till their replacement order arrives to launch the program, Garcia said.

Like the dual meters, the new iterations have digital displays and will be color-coded: two-hour meters are purple, four-hour meters are blue and all-day meters are green. The meters can take credit cards, debit cards, coins and payments through the ParkMobile app.

There will be no additional funding needed to cover the costs of the new units, Garcia said. In 2021, the city entered into a $664,000, five-year agreement with Canadian manufacturer Mackay Meters Inc. as their sole supplier of dual and single meters.

That contract was amended in 2023 to allow for the purchase of more meters and related equipment, at an additional cost of $1.85 million.

Garcia said concerns over how the swap will impact the $50 million deficit in the city's 2024 budget are misguided, in response to some comments on the city's posts on social media about the plan that called it unnecessary and fiscally irresponsible.

The parking services department is funded almost entirely by the proceeds of the city's on-street meters, and the citations they write, Garcia said. Garcia noted that the ticket proceeds are routed through the general fund, which does have a shortfall, but those funds are only passing through on their way to the department after adjudication.

"It's really the ratepayers who utilize the parking system that's funding these," Garcia said.

Before those funds arrive at Parking Services, a large portion of Spokane's parking revenue goes toward paying off debt from the city's 2005 River Park Square settlement. The city makes yearly loan payments that increase marginally each year until 2027. Garcia said this year's payment will be more than $1.79 million. River Park Square is owned by an affiliate of the Cowles Co., which also publishes The Spokesman-Review.

The meters removed during the transition will be used to replace outdated meters in less frequented areas that the city already had plans to replace, Garcia said. The city will replace the meters downtown in two phases, with the second planned for later this year.

"They still have value," Garcia said. 'We're going to use every single one of them."

Shelton said he's glad the city is considering the needs of downtown businesses and looks forward to the transition back to dual meters, and a reservation system that runs a bit more smoothly.

"I'm looking forward to getting us back to a system where we can have a little bit better control over those," Shelton said. "Because parking is definitely vital to what we do."