ROYAL OAK, Mich – Royal Oak leaders admit on-street parking downtown has been a challenge for many years.
They thought they had a solution to the parking problems a few months back when they installed high-tech parking meters; it’s not going as planned.
Parking has been an issue for Downtown Royal Oak for the last 30 or 40 years as this town has sprung up as the mecca for restaurants and nightlife.
City leaders held out much hope for their high-tech parking meters, which takes a photo of your license plate as you’re backing up to park. It also sends you a ticket if you overstay your welcome.
“Dang it, said Chelsey, who received a ticket in the mail Tuesday, Jan 18.
There’s 900 of these new meters scattered around Downtown Royal Oak.
“There are some bugs, and we recognize that there are some bugs, and we got to fix the bugs,” said City Commissioner Brandon Kolo. “The system uses camera technology, and the camera didn’t catch when they left and continued to charge them.”
Glitches where the software would send out a ticket when the ticket isn’t due.
“I got a ticket in a spot for like a minute,” said Isabella Martin. “I was a little upset because I was afraid it was going to be on my record. Other than that, I might challenge it, but it made me pretty upset.”
Isabella should challenge it; the two judges at the Royal Oak Court House are still in the Christmas spirit.
“About 2,000 tickets have been dismissed last week,” Kolo said.
So while the vendor tries to fix the glitches, all the parking meters have been set to free for the month. You know what they say ‘technology is great when it works.’
The company that installed all of the parking meters is feverishly working to fix and update the software glitches. If you’ve recently gotten a ticket down here, you might want to challenge it.