>Great Article by Mike Sedon !
Revenues from Ridgewood parking rate hike fall short
Friday, February 19, 2010
BY MICHAEL SEDON
The Ridgewood News
STAFF WRITER
https://www.northjersey.com/news/bergen/84758732_Revenues_from_rate_hike_fall_short.html
Doubling parking meter rates in Ridgewood did not double revenues, but other factors may have played a role in how the parking utility netted $34,000 in additional income over a five-month period, compared to the same time frame in 2008.
The Ridgewood News, through an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request, obtained parking utility revenue figures for the months from August to December 2008, when rates were 25 cents an hour to park at all meters in the village, and August to December 2009, when the Village Council changed the rates to 50 cents an hour.
The revenue totals for the 2008 period were $254,167.80, while the total for the last five months of 2009 were $288,622.28.
The biggest difference following the rate increase was the change in enforcement times. From 2008 and up to the time of the increase, parking meters were enforced Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. But after August 2009, the enforcement times changed from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday. Another difference is that the village only enforced meters on Ridgewood’s streets on Saturdays, offering free parking in the municipal lots for that day.
Also, the village took over management of the Chestnut Street parking lot from a private vendor in October 2009, and that lot produced an additional $7,509 of parking revenue for the final three months of last year.
But the addition of the Chestnut Street parking lot revenue may have been offset by nearly six weeks of construction at the Prospect Street municipal lot in August and September of last year, when the village replaced curbs, sidewalks, light pole bases, decorative bricks and paved the lot’s surface. The East Ridgewood Avenue streetscape project, which lasted all summer, and work done by Ridgewood Water in the Central Business District (CBD) might also have affected parking revenues because parking in the area was periodically restricted during construction.
Village Manager Ken Gabbert explained in an e-mail that “the rate increase created greater revenue in each of the months following implementation,” but “the parking utility was not self-funding in 2009,” which was the goal of the increase.
Gabbert wrote that it cost $1,000,668 to run the parking utility last year.
“Any revenue/expense imbalance for the parking utility is immediately made up by the general fund of the village,” Gabbert wrote. “For 2009, the village payment is $168,000.”
When the council voted to raise the parking rates and change enforcement times last summer, it stipulated that it would revisit the matter after six months. Councilman Paul Aronsohn, who has long opposed the parking meter increase, said in an e-mail this week that he “strongly believed” the entire issue should be revisited.
“I still believe that parking lots should all be long-term and all be put back to their original rate of 25 cents per hour,” Aronsohn wrote. “This would provide much-needed and much-deserved relief to our commuters, and it would provide some relief to people who work or shop downtown.”
Aronsohn said he needed to better understand the “rationale and funding” for the utility.
“I’m still not satisfied that it provides a benefit to the village or that it is being used properly,” Aronsohn said.
Mayor David Pfund and Deputy Mayor Keith Killion did not return calls seeking comment for this article by press time.
E-mail: sedon@northjersey.com
https://www.northjersey.com/news/bergen/84758732_Revenues_from_rate_hike_fall_short.html
