Public to help choose new parking system for Royal Oak

ROYAL OAK — After years of upsetting parking in downtown Royal Oak, the city is researching prospective new parking vendors.

In the attempt to please the public and change things for the better, the city of Royal Oak is holding a Community Parking Open House on May 7.

The open house will be held in two separate sessions, one being from 8 to 11 a.m. at the Senior Community Center, 3500 Marais Ave. The second will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Royal Oak Farmers Market, 316 E. 11 Mile Road.

According to romi.gov, business owners and residents will have an opportunity to see and try out the new equipment being considered for parking in downtown Royal Oak.

“The input from residents and business owners will be essential as we move through the process towards selecting a new parking vendor,” the city stated on its website, romi.gov. “We hope you are able to attend and learn more about parking changes.”

Residents will be able to experience three different potential parking systems.

“It’s been a really comprehensive process to get here. The commission has actually had a subcommittee formed where we have three commissioners meeting with our DDA members and a parking consultant to really narrow down the three potential vendors,” City Commissioner Brandon Kolo said. “They have been working diligently for over six months now to really come to the right solution.”

The choices were based on ease of use, familiarity and accessibility to every person. City Manager Joe Gacioch said that one of the main ideas was to reinstate a system that uses live enforcement officers instead of the MPS automated enforcement.

“We’re going back to basics, service first. The current system relies on technology to automate time enforcement, and that means no one ever sees an enforcement officer out there,” he said. “We are now bringing back our officers, we have officers anyways, but with this system (MPS) the officers have been behind a desk validating the automated tickets.”

Gacioch said that having the officers physically downtown will be a plus.

“These are people out there, not just looking at cars, they are giving directions, they are greeting people and welcoming people,” he said. “We recognized that the enforcement was a huge service obstacle with the current system.”

Kolo said that another major decision in choosing a vendor for the city is the vendor’s ability to implement the system in a noninvasive way.

“We have a downtown that’s interconnected with a lot of electrical devices, and there is wiring that runs underneath all of the sidewalks. We want to make sure that we can put in a new system that does not require us to tear up every sidewalk and put one in,” Kolo said. “I think we will see that with the potential vendors we have, they all offer solutions that are minimally invasive to the infrastructure that’s existing.”

During the open houses, members of the community will be able to touch and use the potential machines to assess how they work.

The open house will begin at the senior center, and Gacioch said that was intentional. The city wants to bring the meters to the seniors to see if they are able to use them easily.

“We’re looking to have people test out the keyboards, whether that’s a screen keyboard or a keyboard on the pay station,” Gacioch said. “All three stations are ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant, and all three stations are solar powered. All three stations take coins and cards.”

“I’m really excited that we are having these open houses,” Kolo said. “Having two different ones, one at the Senior Center and the community at large at the farmers market, we are really trying to be inclusive of everyone to see what works for different communities.”

Gacioch said that the new system will be in place by the end of the contract period that the city has with MPS, which is Dec. 31.

After the pay station open house process, the city will be looking to recommend the new parking pay stations in June. Next, the city will be looking into acquiring a new mobile payment system.

“How are we going to implement a mobile pay app where we offer text to pay, which I do want to offer, that’s a priority, we want to make it really easy and convenient to pay, right? So, mobile pay will be next,” Gacioch said. “We’re looking at updating our garage gates and finally looking at unifying our parking system. Right now, we don’t have one parking operator to rule them all, so I’m interested in putting on a parking operations contract, someone to help us actually manage the customer service side, someone to help us manage the maintenance, the collections, etc.”

For more information on the parking open houses, visit romi.gov.