October 26,2017
the staff of The Ridgewood Blog
Ridgewood NJ, Proving once again the old adage that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, Village CFO Robert G. Rooney just revealed that revenue reports from the Village’s Parking Utility indicate usage of the Parkmobile app within Ridgewood resulted in approximately $200k in the form of an annual commission being paid to Parkmobile, Inc.
That $200k could have been retained by Village if cash had been used in parking meters instead of parking fees having been paid by app/phone.
Parkmobile was introduced for use in Ridgewood during May of 2015. It was touted by then Village Manager, Roberta Sonenfeld as offering an alternative method of providing payment for parking.
If you think the people don’t visit to shop now then just try to reset the game to quarter land stakes only..There willl be cactuses rolling down the commercial zone in RIDGEWOOD.Commuters use Parkmobile to deal with former counsels decision to restrict the former 12 hour loading of quarters that was still okay in past then changed to 8 hours max ..example in cottage place.Working taxpayers use the Parkmobile App to comply with the legal 8 hour max from their workplace to pay the village their Parking fees and be able to pay the towns high taxes every year after year.
Has the town reached out to other similar sized Bergen County towns and offered to share volume and payment benchmarks in some blind study town B Town C etc vs RIDGEWOOD? Then meet with the management of Parkmobile to offer a possible longer contract period or some tiers that once reached each year scale down some of the fees in a possible refund or credit to the following years minimum payment.
If anything parking should be free from Thanksgiving to January 1. Then maybe more people come to Ridgewood and shop. Why should I come to Ridgewood the shop when I go to the mall and park for free or just go online and buy everything online have it shipped to my house. Retail is on its way out. People Just turn on Bloomberg news and look for yourself.
I will NEVER use Park Mobile.
Quarters (and dimes) are VERY easy and convenient to use.
.
If RW goes exclusively to park mobile, I will not shop or visit the CBD unless I am going to a retailer who has their own free parking lot.