VERNON — Why isn't Brattleboro talking strategically about parking? Why doesn't it reconsider not just the meters in the Harris lot, but the whole way parking is managed townwide?
Brattleboro's Parking Enforcement department is an “enterprise” agency, which means it's like a business that has to pay for itself, and hopefully make a little money for the town from parking fees and fines. But while breaking even is a good goal, it's more important to have parking policies that maximize convenience to shoppers and other visitors, and that maximize benefits to merchants as well.
To accomplish these ends, the town needs to think more strategically.
A few years ago, in a strategic move, the town installed electronic meters that accept smart cards. You insert the smart card, wait a moment, pull it out, and the meter is loaded with the maximum amount of time available. Before you leave the parking space, you insert the card again and get credit for the unused time recorded on the card. In other words, you pay only for the minutes you actually used. That's not an option when you put coins in the meter, which is why it is called a “smart card.”
But the full strategic value of the electronic meters has not been realized because most people are not aware smart cards are available. There's no clear information on the meters to tell you where to buy them. (You can buy or reload them only at the parking office in the transportation center garage on Flat Street.) So probably only a few hundred people are using smart cards. Moreover, they still don't work in the lots where you buy a paper ticket from a machine, or the non-electronic meters in town.
Better marketing and wider availability of smart cards, along with the ability to use them everywhere, would make for a much smarter parking strategy. Here are some suggestions for other components:
• Upgrade the parking lot ticket machines to accept smart cards in addition to coins, or better yet, to accept standard debit and credit cards.
• Recruit merchants to sell smart cards in pre-loaded amounts like $10, $20 and $50.
• Sell them also at the Municipal Center, Brooks Memorial Library, the Senior Center, etc., and install a vending machine in the River Garden or outside the post office. And sell them online.
• Allow paper tickets purchased from the parking lot machines to be valid anywhere in town until expiration, so you can take your unused minutes with you and use them in another lot or at a parking meter. Publicize this feature on the ticket machines.
• Install a dozen or so free parking meters here and there throughout downtown. These are meters that accept no cash, but have a button that gives you 15 to 30 minutes free (with an enforced limit of one free “punch”).
• Restructure the parking lot fees so the first quarter gets you a double or triple allotment of time. This feature also adds convenience for people running short errands.
• Institute a “first time free” policy on all parking violations issued, so that visitors who get a ticket get their fine waived on their first infraction.
• Expand the value of smart cards by enabling merchants to accept them for small payments - so your smart parking card can also pay for your coffee and a bagel, or other small purchases.
• Once instituted, review the policy often and make adjustments to maximize customer and merchant benefits, not revenue.
Yes, some of these changes and innovations would cut into revenues. Wider use of smart cards, portability of paper tickets until expiration, and free short-term meters would benefit customers but reduce the town's take.
But increasing parking convenience would draw more people downtown to do business and would encourage more return visits and better word-of-mouth, so the town benefits with greater revenue from multiple sources in the long run.
Such policies are working for many cities around the country. Brattleboro should follow suit and get strategic about parking.