Transportation Committee Meeting Summary - September 9, 2025
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The transportation committee meeting on Tuesday, September 9th, 2025.
This time I will do roll call.
Right.
Alderman Savage.
Present.
Arma O'Neill present.
And Alderwoman Rhonda Pendel Charles is not present.
I have a motion to approve the agenda as written.
So move.
Second.
All in favor say aye.
Aye.
Have a motion to approve minutes from 7925.
So moved.
Second.
All in favor say aye.
Aye.
Aye.
Great.
Right into general discussion.
Our first item on the agenda is the transportation board update with Tara Ashmore.
Welcome.
Thank you for coming.
Hi.
Good afternoon.
Two items.
One would be to talk about membership on the board.
And the second item would be to talk about vision zero and pedestrian safety in Annapolis.
All right.
Is your mic on?
It's green.
Okay.
Can you pull it a little closer?
Thank you.
Is that better, you guys?
Yeah.
So on the uh transportation board, uh, we do have some core members and then we have some other members that seem to uh sort of um wave in and out.
Um I don't mind having a small board.
What I do uh have concerns about is really a board that represents all of the community.
So we would just ask you and if you could share it with your council members that we would seek input to have a diversified group uh across all the different wards, and if they have any ideas, um if they could, if you could let me know or Kurt, we'd be happy to track those down.
Uh Kurt is sort of becoming a little in-house membership committee on his own, uh, which is sort of helpful to have.
But um, you know, we do seek out people, but again, I would like to really see representation across all the wards.
Right now we're really are getting fairly concentrated in ward one.
Um that's somewhat exacerbated by the fact that we have representation from St.
John and representation from the Academy, in addition to I think at least three members that are all Ward One.
So it's a significant, I would say that's five out of eight.
So seek your support and help on that.
And is that makeup because there's been um vacancies?
I know that there's a vacancy from Ward 4, I believe, board.
Yes, as well as just a uh a higher number of um recommendations that turn out to be people in ward one.
Okay.
I can send you some more details on that if it helps and where the vacancies are, which wards that we would actually seek new members from.
Okay, that would be fantastic if you could let us know where we can also look it up.
You bet.
Um and in particular, um the secretary who's sort of MIA at this point in time.
So um, you know, we're a little behind on our our meeting minutes and that sort of thing.
So it would be helpful to have some assistance there.
Okay.
So if you give us names, we will track them down.
And then the second is Vision Zero and pedestrian safety.
Um I was digging into some numbers on state statistics on fatalities and accidents involving pedestrians, and I think it's something that would be worthwhile for Annapolis to look at maybe a little deeper.
Um, I know I can get stats from Maryland more specifically.
I'm wondering if there's a way to find, and we can ferret this out a little more, a way to find sort of a heat map in Annapolis.
Uh on the board, the the place that comes up the most is really compromise street and the lack of um adequate lighting on compromise as well as a lack of a good pedestrian crosswalk at the end of Duke of Gloucester.
You've probably heard that theme before.
But I think if we looked at a heat map on where accidents actually occur in Annapolis, we'd get a better perspective on areas outside the ones that we tend to travel, right?
We would get a more holistic approach and we could take a sort of all-encompassing look at where we really need to think about pedestrian safety.
And it may tie in if you guys ever um approve or seek to have additional uh traffic cameras.
We might then also be able to use that information on where one might place traffic cameras if one wanted to increase safety.
That's about it, guys.
All right, thank you.
Questions?
Yeah, just uh as far as compromise street.
Um, I do agree, you know, we also have the school right on that street.
Um we are going to be adding a bike lane.
We met with public works, so that is going to get painted on that new newly paved section and uh future phases, though.
It's gonna take a little more time to connect that circle and also do a short uh narrower one across the board, the bridge there down.
Hopefully all the way down 6th Street.
Great.
There are a lot of um bikes bicyclists, bicyclists on the um on the board.
Um if you see keep putting let me know.
Um, but I'll look that up.
Do you ever invite or have public works or um I guess you have the department of transportation show up?
Yeah, occasionally parkers and clock over there frequently, if not monthly.
But who?
Marcus.
Yeah, and what about uh public works?
Uh I don't recall public works recently.
Um there are different uh people that are sort of interested in transportation that sometimes come and talk about their issues, but we haven't had public works.
We could entertain that.
Thank you for that recommendation.
We should certainly do that.
I would suggest the new traffic engineer, Jeff Wentz.
Okay.
Um yeah, because I mean we're where I think I think we're I can I could say we're all we're uh general the council's generally trying to get um public works oriented more on pedestrian safety and actually getting you know and planning well, plan zoning is already I think focused on their end, but um hopefully next term we'll get a complete streets standard put in place that has to get applied for all new projects, road projects.
And do they coordinate with the city manager on those things, or is it really DP Department of Public Works that you would manage?
I think they pretty much well, I think they pretty much handled themselves and um, but I I think it my point I think it'd be beneficial to have them here from you occasionally.
Okay, thank you for that.
I think we all share the same goals.
Great, thank you.
Yeah, we have a meeting next Monday.
We do meet Monday night.
That might be a little soon.
Yeah, yeah.
We'll find out.
Thank you so much for coming.
Thank you.
You can leave it on.
Uh next up on our agenda is uh ID 1725 transportation department update.
Mark Moore.
Good afternoon, Madam Chair, uh, members of the Transportation Committee.
Uh, thank you for this opportunity to present to you some of the updates at uh transportation uh related matters.
Uh give you a little update on our EV charging infrastructure in our city garages, uh the bird bike and um the bird bike and scooter program, update on city council resolution R 2125, a little bit of community outreach, and then the presentations from our two parking contractors, SP Metropolis, and Premium Parking.
Um, as far as EV chargers, uh we looking at Hillman Garage first.
Um currently um there's one out of the four level three chargers, which is the fastest charger that's not operational.
Repairs are underway, and we hope to get those all completed in the next couple weeks, clearly before the end of September.
You know, historically there's been a you know a little bit longer of a lead time with that ABB.
Uh that's chargers, uh, the heaviest use because it's it's a fast charger.
It's been ranging, you know, three to six weeks uh due to the high demand and all.
Um this level four charger, there's um eight ports for them.
The downtime for this year, one unit's been down for about three months between January and March.
Another unit's been down for two months between May and June, and the unit number three has been down since October.
I mean, excuse me, August 18th.
So cumulative downtime has been 185 days, but cumulative uptime has been 836 days with an operational uptime of about 81%.
That's for the level three.
The level two chargers, the three uh units with their all dual head connectors, and uptime is very close to, if not at 100% right now, today it is at 100%.
So the other garages, Gots Court Garage, there's four dual head chargers that includes one fast charger, all are currently um operational.
Night and garage, there's two.
And these are likely the oldest ones we have in the city, probably close to 10 years from grant money's back in you know two twenty twenty fifteen or twenty fourteen.
Um they're all functional but aging equipment, of course.
Park place garage, there's five chargers, including one that's at least a fast charger, and there's just one right now that's out of service in park place.
Um transit ridership for the summer, July, August was slightly lower as compared to last year, the same period.
Not sure exactly why, but our microtransit mobility that went into a pilot um on August 15th of last year is actually exceeding by double digits from from last year.
But we're planning to do some more community outreach to make sure um folks really you know still know that it's out there.
We did a lot of that as the um as we reached out back last year with visitors center, community centers, senior centers, and we got to redo that because it's not always it's not a one and done.
Um so we're looking at hosting some other events.
In fact, we have an event coming up on I think it's the 23rd with the visitors center, because this isn't our opinion that if we keep their staff updated, they're good ambassadors for all of us with parking, transportation, city dock updates, and the like.
And of course, we'd like to do another familiarization tour with you guys um sometime next month, and of course, the new uh council that'll be a part of our whole group here.
Um, one unfortunate thing when we look at uh bird bike and scooter, that came um into play back in the spring of 2022 as Hillman was being rebuilt.
So our agreement with them in spring of 2022 or thereabouts.
Um this was a pilot for one year with three one year options to extend service until the spring of 2026.
But unfortunately, Byrd has advised us that they're not in the position to provide the service that they have been doing for us um over the last three years for the foreseeable future.
It's just outside of their bandwidth.
So that being said, we'll begin the process with procurement uh to put the RP out for a new vendor this spring, which we would have had to have done anyway, um, because that sunset in the April May um time frame.
Just unfortunate because we have a few big events coming in October with the Pride Parade with the boat show and just normal weather all the way to sometimes close to Thanksgiving.
So there was an opportunity to go a little bit further along with that.
Um what I'd like to get into now is uh the council resolution R2125, and as you're aware of it, that was um a companion with the 1220.24.130, which is expired meter.
Okay.
And which one are you talking about?
This is uh 12.24.130.
Um that's expired meter.
It's been on the books as a city code, and it's used for just that.
Um prior to the fall of 2023, all of our garages were gated.
Um, so there was no way of not paying unless the gate was up, broken, or you somehow got out.
Um but this was the closest code that addressed what we had as far as violations in our city garages, and that's what was was being used.
So as you know, as voters on that with the city council, this resolution distinguishes between the on-street and off-street um parking.
So the on-street violations, which is expired meter, still remain unchanged at $50 a citation.
There's no um, what do you call um there's no grace period?
It depends on is it's really one of those that's uh behavioral.
So as a uh parking enforcement officer comes by if it just clicked over one minute.
Maybe they will go check another few cars and come back, but there's no grace period.
So that expired meter is there.
When we talk about off-street, we're specifically talking about our garages.
So those violations as per this R2125 reduces that 50 to 25 dollars plus a processing fee of five dollars and 25 cents, and the cost of the parking session.
So, as mentioned, we're working on official start date with both of our parking contractors.
You know, you don't want a tail of two cities.
This one started, the other one hasn't, it causes a lot of confusion.
We're not saying it's gonna take you know months and months, but it will take weeks.
Started four for this resolution for both parking contractors to be able to get that plugged in and operational.
There's our hope in early October, maybe as early as October 1, or maybe the first Monday in October, which I think is the 6th, but it could be sooner.
But as maybe mentioned, uh working with both of them to make sure it's unified um across the board.
Uh, we have it in all four garages um simultaneously.
Oh, but that's what I have for the updates for the summer um of what we're doing.
We're you know trying new things to get out to the field to um you know introduce or reintroduce, I should say the services that we offer, our Pair of Transit, Microtransit, and the in and the like.
Um so we look forward to um just continuing our um conversations with you guys and also just getting the word out of what it is that we're actually offering.
So, what I like to do is you know, bring our contractors up, starting first with um SP Metropolis.
Per your your request, Chairman and board, I mean committee.
Um, you've given us the agenda of what you like to have presented um for this time around.
So Mr.
John Kemp was um regional manager of metropolis and um Jason Kimmy, who's senior manager, they'll be presenting on um the topics they gave, followed by presentation of Mr.
Jason Parole, market president with premium parking.
Can I ask a really quick question?
Sure.
Um before we get those, and I think Alderman Savage has a question.
So um a few weeks ago, a an issue came up that popped up that I don't think is a single issue um with the meters, and the fact that now all of the I believe that all of the meters in the city are all digital now.
Um, so it's a code and not a put quarters in or put your credit card in a meter, correct?
We don't have any of them.
Some meters that are still coin operated or are they all streaming?
Downtown.
Point or quarter, yeah.
There's some that are still accepting, yeah.
But more often than not, the meters on the street are the I'm I'm gonna address the meters that are code, but either using park mobile or QR code.
So a person parked on Calvert Street, they paid their meter with their phone, standing at their car, went into a meeting.
Uh the meeting lasted over the two hours, and at the one hour 45 minute mark, they pulled up their phone and paid for parking because it's two different codes.
One code was one, two, three, four, one code was two one two four.
Not knowing, not paying attention to the fact that you're only allowed to park in your spot for two hours, because they were able to pull up in their location, their phone tapped their phone's location, not their car's location.
So they were able to pay that.
Do we know if that's happened to more than one person or is this yeah?
Because we're they were the vehicle they paid it the vehicle, which is a different location than where they were currently.
Yeah, that does happen sometimes.
Uh my name's Brendan Cleverly, account manager for premium parking.
That does happen sometimes.
Um I would say it is definitely a rarity.
Um, because most of the time it would take the session actually expiring for them to be unable to extend the session from their phone at a completely different location.
So that means that the session is already well expired and they're not able to extend the original session.
Um it happens sometimes, but it is a rarity.
So this was a second session when you yeah, that would be a comp that would mean it would be a completely separate session than the original session, completely different confirmation number, the whole works.
Um so yeah, but the public doesn't realize that now they're getting a ticket because their car is still at zone one, two, three, four, but they've just paid for zone nine three nine four, right?
And in most instances, that would be a ticketable offense, yes.
Um, but I do also believe that park mobile as well as our system, we do notify the parkers that their session's about to expire.
So we do make sure to say, hey, your session's about to expire.
Would you like to re-up it so that we can try to curb that occurrence happening as much as possible?
But that would be a ticketable offense.
Um if they did pay for a two-hour maximum, they wouldn't necessarily be allowed to re-up.
Right.
So if it's a two-hour, if they paid for two hours, it would be a two-hour maximum, they wouldn't be allowed to re-up it at all.
They paid for one hour and then try to re-up it, then by another hour, then it would work for that location.
But if you pay for a completely different location and you pay for two hours, it would be a different, it would be a different location.
Um just saying in this particular case, city resident not unintelligent.
Right.
When they pulled when they saw that they were they knew that they had until 6 p.m.
and it was going to go past 6 p.m., they pulled up their phone and started a new parking event, not realizing that the code was different.
Right.
In those instances, we would be if it wasn't in those instances, we would be able to see that if they did appeal the cite, if they received a citation first off, um, we would still be able if they appealed it, we'd still be able to see.
Oh, they did make a different payment for a completely different location.
So it isn't as if we wouldn't be able to completely see and be transparent with it.
But if it is a maximum of two hours, they paid for two hours in a completely different location.
Um the ticket stands because they pay for a different location, but um, in most instances, if they did appeal it with the agreement that we have with the department of transportation, we would most likely void that citation.
Jason Crawl Market president for premium.
I just wanted to he touched on that.
So about 12 months ago, uh, I would estimate we did establish a I I would call it the good intent approval uh with Marcus and Vicky's office to make sure that when we can see in any place, regardless of the reason, good intent from someone.
They try to use the system, abide by whatever the regulations are, but something went wrong.
We have a blanket approval to void those when we see it.
And we do do that.
So this would fall into one of those buckets, I think as well.
So if they extended it, let's say they're at Harry Brown's, but they parked on Main Street, they get the notice, but they don't see it in time, they're eating, then they realize it, they make a payment, but it's on the QR or number out front.
At that point, if they appeal it, we see that we're up here for them.
Okay.
So it's a glitch and we're aware of it and we're just uh it's not a glitch, it's how it's intended.
So um 10 years ago, chalk was put on tires.
Uh, and if you move the chalk two feet, all of a sudden you had moved and it wasn't the same parking session.
So at that point we divided the city up into some subsections or zones, if you will, uh, so that we were able to make sure that the employees downtown weren't parking on City Dock all day, and then our residents and our guests that come visit couldn't window shop and eat, etc.
So it's meant to in a in a very soft way, encourage them to go to the garage or to the other part of town if they're going somewhere else.
Um and this does happen, it's very rare.
Uh it does happen, and that's what we use that letter for.
Thank you.
Solomons.
Uh yeah, just for uh Director Moore.
Um so for the EV chargers.
Do you know why it took so long to get that one repaired that was down in Hillman for three months?
You wanted to test the one in Hillman.
I can answer that one actually.
Um the reason for it being down for so long was mostly due to parts being back ordered for so long.
Most of the parts that come from ABB, which are the supplier and the actual repair operators for the chargers, uh, most of them actually come from overseas, and they do take time to come from overseas.
Um to the actual reason why it was broken, which was actually a brand new CPU that had been put in uh fried within only a year of it being put in, it fried completely.
So they had to import brand new CPU for this machine, and it took three months, it actually took two months for it to come in, and then another month for them to schedule it with someone to repair it.
That wasn't that's already beside us approving the quote, everything like that, and payment occurring, it took an additional month for them to schedule it with their repair people.
Um that's ABB ABB.
So the company that runs or like how would you say if they operate the machines, like they watch them, watch the heartbeat, everything like that.
That's a company called In Charge.
It's like a parent company in a way.
Um, they watch the machines, see if they're broken, everything like that.
And how it works is when something's broken, they're supposed to go and contact ABB, who is the company who repairs them.
ABB is the only company that knows how to repair those charges.
Um as of late, in charge hasn't been reporting as they should be.
So it is it has occurred sometimes where we find that they're down, and then we have to do to the best of our ability, uh, inform them of what is broken in the machine.
Obviously, I'm not an electrician.
I will never claim to be one, but that is also what kind of draws the process out is we're taking pictures of the machines and everything to show as much as possible what's broken on it, but then they had to go through their processes, do basically a game of telephone between us in charge ABB back back back back and forth, back and forth, back and forth before someone can come out and actually repair the machine.
But then they had to go through their processes, do basically a game of telephone between us in charge ABB back back and forth back and forth back and forth before someone can come out and actually repair the machine.
And that's why it took three months for that one machine.
So it is uh what's being done to improve that process.
Really, there isn't much that can be improved for that process, other than being even more difficult with them than necessarily someone would someone may think they would need to be.
Um that the reason why this machine that's been down for a month is actually being repaired in a month is because I've been personally following up with them twice a day.
Normally you would think that you need to follow up with somebody maybe once a day, or maybe once every two days, just to try not to annoy them as much as possible, you know.
But with these people, it is definitely a game of you have to hold their hand to make sure that they're doing their job.
And that's what we've been doing.
I've been calling them every single day, beginning of when I get into work, and before I even leave to go go home.
I call them twice, and that's why it's being fixed at a faster rate.
We're also going to be putting stickers on the EV chargers so that we can uh have them reported easier.
So if say a resident does go or a parker does go and notice that they are broken before we do, um, they can just say, Oh, it's charger four, and we already know the serial number for charger four, and we can just like that contact in charge instead of going down and being like this one's broken and so on and so forth.
Thank you.
And you did it great.
Yeah.
So are they a sub of premium?
No.
No.
Uh these were purchased by Whiting Turner during the the construction of the garage.
Um, it's been a challenge, and I would say in the current environment with a lot of the funding that's disappeared, we're seeing a bit of a reaction from these companies since service levels have dropped as well and parts are less available.
Uh, with this ABB charger, as he mentioned, the the the internals of it tend to be harder to get than a plug or a cord um adapter, if you will.
Uh so these larger issues take a good bit longer.
Um I'm just wondering why the companies don't have they should have an inventory of repair parts.
You as opposed to like having to order them from China every time.
I will tell you this.
I will not purchase ABB chargers in the future for anything.
Is there any is there a way to get some other like who owns the chargers?
So typically ready to get some other company to maintain them and yeah, so typically they license the service contracts out to somebody, and in our case it's in charge, and that's who we have to go through.
Who did that licensing?
Uh ABB.
So the ABB maintenance is done through in charge, and that's your option to reach out to, unfortunately.
ABB.
Who's ABB in the whole relation?
They manufacture the charger.
They're the company that is branded on the charger.
If you has the contract with ABB.
I don't know.
They were just purchased and put in the garage.
Uh so when we came in, that's I know, but I'm saying, like if if the if the are the chargers still owned by ABB, or they uh if they're owned by uh premium or uh one of the other partners in the garage, then the legal, but I I believe it would be their own by the city.
Uh that's fair to say we could look into it.
I mean, if because three months, I mean I I have two EVs, uh three months repair times not acceptable.
I mean typically, you know, when I have a charger that's down, like is there a number people can call?
Because typically when when you go to charge that's not working, there's a number you can call it right there, they'll usually try rebooting it if that doesn't work.
So it's sh it is broken, and it'll then you pull up, it'll notify you.
Um, but you know, because we've had other issues with my uh in the county where you have uh the chargers take months as well, and it's just it's it's very inconvenient if you're you really need to charge.
So just looking at ways we can no, yeah.
I I think the stickers, I'm glad both times I stepped up, he brought up what I was coming up to talk about.
But the stickers are gonna be a big help to make sure that we get it before somebody else tells us about it.
Yeah, um, meaning they go to City Hall or or come to our office to let us know.
Uh unfortunately that's the extent of what we have for those, and I agree, it's it's a long time and not ideal at all.
Uh they're expensive.
You can't have 50 of them in a facility.
It wouldn't make sense to do that.
So it's important to have what you do have access to online and working.
Yeah.
It's been a challenge since May of last year.
Uh it's gotten a bit more challenging in recent months, but working through it.
I guess I would just ask Director Moore.
You have somebody on staff, keep an eye on performance of that company ABB.
Uh makes your repair times.
It sounds like premiums, you're doing you know the best you can to get them to make the repairs, but um you know, yeah, and if staff notices the repair times take keep taking way too long, then maybe we need to step in and yeah, we can do a little bit more research.
Um why whiting sort of purchase them?
Maybe that was the best deal at the time, but uh researching more about the company insight and um ABB.
Uh, see what what can be done.
Um, what kind of problems maybe other locations nearby us if they're using the same product um to see what's going on, but we will follow up.
Thank you.
And any timeline on the park place charger?
You said that one was down.
Uh we can check on that one.
Parkplace charger, that one that's down.
Yes.
Uh it has a how much time.
It's on its third modem since they switched from shell to switch.
Yeah.
Switch is the new company.
And they've replaced the modem twice.
So I I don't know.
So it's BGE.
BG.
Maintain, yeah, BG's problem with maintaining, they don't maintain their chargers well.
Uh they actually have a guy that comes out once every two weeks and tests everything that's theirs.
But they haven't given you a timeline.
Waiting on parts.
That's all I've gotten so far.
Okay.
The modem is on order.
Yeah.
All right.
Uh as far as the bird scooters, um.
I'm kind of glad.
I mean, I'm kind of glad that because I was, you know, communicating with uh Mr.
Rao.
Um glad that um glad we're able to get a new company to do that because I don't think Bird's been doing a good job lately.
Um but I guess keep us posted on the procurement for a new company or any kind of bidding.
Are you gonna go through full bid process?
Yeah, we will because of what we had um Alderman um was a pilot program that sunset.
We just couldn't restart it again.
We'd have to go through the whole process.
So instead of waiting until the spring, uh when it was getting closer within 90 days, we'll just start that now.
The B so we'll be ready in the spring.
Um, but you know, we'll we'll see what we can get because this city does need and it was we it was well used.
Yeah.
Um, but you know, towards the end of it, it wasn't well managed.
Yeah.
Can you or will you be making sure that there's a bike component to that?
Yeah, scooters.
That was the big part at the beginning, as you saw with the 150.
I don't know what the mix was, but you know, maybe one third of that was bikes and the other two-thirds were scooters.
We do want the bike, the scooters were much more uh used, uh use quite a bit more than the bikes, but we do want the mix.
Yeah, good.
And uh just you know, as far as I'm asking about the chargers because we have received complaint from his member on the transportation board.
Yes.
Um about those.
So I wanted to dig into a little bit.
And one of the things in uh Mr.
Regal's um report there, it if if you're coming downtown every few days, every few weeks, or whatever.
That one was down when I last came.
It was down again.
It looks like a continuation.
As Mr.
Cleverly may mention, it was you know fixed and was fixed for like seven to ten days.
Very short period of time, so it looks like it was the continuous outage.
And the numbers I gave there as far as um uptime, I believe is going all the way back to um when the Hill Moon was open or when all the they were done in summer of 2023.
All right, that's all I have.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you.
Hello everybody, thanks for having us.
John Kemp, Metropolis.
We'll run through some of the data that's um uh that we have in the past, but also um with some additional information here.
All right, so the first one we have uh is a length of stay um by location.
This hasn't changed much, which I would which I would expect.
I we do need to send an updated version to the to the board here with uh corrected comments.
Um some of these leaked over from the previous one, but it's a typical use pattern.
I will say that grace periods me are grace period sessions, and those are sessions from folks who would come in and then leave relatively quickly within 15 minutes.
Those remain high, higher than I would have guessed at any given point.
And then there are uh park place, which is the third lightest colored bar on this uh particular graph.
Uh has has uh represents some long uh stay durations, which makes sense.
There's uh there's a hotel component to that uh driving a lot of the parking.
On the next several slides, we've got peak occupancy.
So this is good.
Uh again, this is what I would expect.
The uh the it's a busy chart, so I'd encourage you to take a look.
Um we can send an electronic version, as I mentioned, we're gonna send an updated version um or on the uh on the paper you have in front of you.
But peak occupancy by day in a given month, so June, July, and then and then August is on a subsequent page for each of the three garages.
Um nothing terribly unexpected here.
I will say um this is extremely useful data to have at our fingertips.
Uh as we know we as a as a group as a parking group, we talk about events at the top of each biweekly meeting's agenda.
And it's important, I think maybe to consider not just those events, but also just the goings on beyond specific city sanctioned events, because when you see uh areas um that you might not expect large a large peak occupancy on a Friday evening in June or in um it's in one of the months at GOT, for example.
Um yeah, Friday evening in July.
That was at Park Place, but um it's important to be digesting this stuff regularly so that your staffing is meeting the demand, obviously.
So this is uh this is good.
That the areas to the right of each of these tables are represent when your egress, ingress and egress periods are again, important, right?
Where should staff be in a particular location at a particular time?
You want to be where the action is, right?
That way you can help the most people.
So we've got uh June, July, and August for each of the garages.
I will say that we need to send an updated version for Knighton.
Knighton's data got is actually represented by park places data.
So we'll send you an updated version correcting for night.
Keep going through, let's see.
But as you look at it and have questions, by all means think about those.
We're we're happy to talk through them.
Let's keep going through occupancy.
Wait, say my question.
On the first slide, uh stop me if you're gonna get into this a little bit, but do you have a percentage of those who are staying for one to two hours that use the two-hour free?
I can add that.
Pass.
Yeah, that's that's yep, we'll add that to that slide.
So percentage uh percentage of or I'm we want to mark on there how many folks you how many residents use their residential validation from here, right?
Yeah, uh numbers or percentage would be fine.
Okay, sure.
I mean, numbers would be good because I I think I mentioned this last time.
I would like to just get an idea of monetarily how much.
Yeah, I think we included that in the last one.
I we I we deprecated that slide in here for this particular time, but we'll make sure it's just by default in all of uh in all of these updates.
Yep.
Okay, great.
Yep.
Got that note.
All right.
And as we get through occupancy, here's uh table of uh of infractions for non-payment.
So those would be folks who actually have gotten a ticket in the month in in each of those months months by by location for leaving without paying.
And um as uh as director uh more mentioned, um, this process is gonna change a bit uh for the for the better with the passage of the uh of the ordinance uh affecting 1224130 or 1224030.
payment so those would be folks who actually have gotten a ticket in the month in in each of those months months by by location for leaving without paying and um as uh as director uh more mentioned um this process is going to change a bit uh for the for the better with the passage of the uh of the ordinance uh affecting 1224130 or 1224 oh thirty um the passage of that ordinance is going to help automate that this is a very manual process at current um um it's going to go ahead and automate that process um so i i don't know that that's necessarily going to mean there's more infractions i wouldn't say that but the team will be better um freeed up to help folks answer questions and fulfill requests uh compared to to um the very manual process of writing an infraction today in the garage what is it you're gonna automate the the actual infraction issuance process so the the passage of 1224 of of the ordinance and i don't just don't what is it or i don't know if it's our 2125 affecting ordinance 1224 30 is going to the passage of that's gonna help us automate the process um and at the same time as we've discussed over the course of um you know our parking groups bi weekly meetings right that includes the alder woman as well as uh members of of city hall and department of transportation it's gonna become more arguably more equitable for the parker um and certainly more efficient in terms of of the if of the issuance this chart shows that it's there's a quite a bit of a drop from like June or from July to June I think July is mostly there's there's quite a there's there's there's a significant fewer significantly fewer number of parkers in general um but there's there's probably other factors that that go into that um to that drop I'm I'm not a hundred percent sure yet why we'd have such a such a you know the large very large drop at night and but uh obviously we're gonna need to figure out what that is if it's not just volume.
Yeah and why did that increase so much from 39 to 203 is that a data error I don't know those are the those are the infractions that went out I don't so I don't think it's a data error in this particular it's only that garage.
Yeah that doesn't really make sense.
I agree.
So we'll have to uh take that note back and then to have it go from two or three to eighteen right on that no thank you.
Yeah then on the next one we've got some uh this is a bit this is the amount of unpaid time so the time represented uh that is I'll say air quotes or quote unpaid um in the garage garages by hour or uh by month excuse me um this is a bit this is raw raw data and um we need to we need to refine the process a little bit of how we what we call unpaid because there's there are mitigating circumstances for example at park place very large numbers here um but you've got a hotel in place and the the mechanism for the valet company or the hotel to process their guests is um one in which the agreement with the city or us is the agent for the city for the hotel parking there um while their guests might not register there's there's opportunities there for their guests to to for them not to do it correctly not process them correctly and thus appear as though they're unpaid um I'll kind of leave that leave that at that but uh there's some other mitigating circumstances I think in here that we need to look at in terms of the data refinement uh to arrive at the final sort of you know what I would consider unpaid is uh the hours associated with the citations issued whereas this is more than that so there can be reasons for you to have left and not paid but after looking at it we wouldn't issue a citation in a in a particular case um perhaps you put the wrong letter in to your license plate right your license plate ABC 123 but you wrote in let's say the camera picked it up as a eight thinking the eight the B was an eight uh C 123 and you paid under ABC 123 that would manifest itself or that would make itself apparent as we were to go ahead and issue a citation we would say oh we we're not gonna issue that citation because that person put in a put in the correct plate or vice versa you know there's a there's a uh someone put the wrong touch the wrong letter on their phone when they went ahead and paid so we marry those two events up that's a paid trend that goes from an unpaid transaction to a paid one and doesn't receive a citation but but some of the hours in here are represented by by those circumstances.
That's a paid trend that goes from an unpaid transaction to a paid one and doesn't receive a citation, but but some of the hours in here are represented by by those circumstances.
So we have to we have to come up with a more efficient way to to process this data um so that it only represents the true number of unpaid or citable sessions.
Yeah.
And yeah, or they've paid after they left.
So uh remind thank you, Jason, for reminding me.
Um, you know, uh another aspect uh that we have well, we have a partial portion of we have a partial bit of the asp of of this aspect in place today, but it will become even more available thanks to the passage of that of the of that ordinance ordinance referenced earlier.
Um for folks who might not their battery may have run run out on their phone, their they didn't have their phone, whatever the reason is, um, they'll be able to, they have the ability to, but they'll they'll be more uh proactively prompted to to say, hey, you still have 24 hours to pay what you owe for that parking session that you've just left at night and garage.
And if they go ahead and do that, that's a paid parking session.
So we're it's not our intent to cite folks who who show the good intent, pay their pay what they've owed for parking uh before 24 hours is up, and then they they move over to this citable queue, if you will.
I think that's the last one more.
Ah, repeat offenders, repeat offenders.
Yep, this is good data here.
Um wish there weren't so many, but um, but it's it's interesting to see.
Um I guess it doesn't shock me too much.
Um when you look at broader sort of trends in this sort of thing, but um we'll continue to track this.
Um and I will say we do uh, you know, obviously, in addition to citing folks, um, it's not that we would cite anyone more aggressively who's a repeat offender that's not I mean a citation is a citation, but um to the degree we have any contact information or any ability to find this plate, this does help.
We do have reports specifically for bandits, these are called in in our system bandits, and um it helps direct staff to say there's that vehicle that you know hasn't paid.
Let me go put a notice on their car, you know, that gives them the instructions.
That they're uh they're on all the signs, but here's another here's another flyer with instructions to say step one do this, step two, do that, step three, do that, hopefully to to help mitigate that.
I mean, how do you handle as far as on staff's end, you know, do you get a notice when somebody comes in who um owes money to you, hasn't paid, like who is a repeat offender.
Does staff get a notice when the license plate is red going in?
It doesn't, it doesn't when the when it's going in.
Um, but we have we run bandit reports on a we ought to have an automated bandit report run.
Um and so we can quickly look at that.
It's part of our duty every day to say who's who's on the list, and then we can refer to the the active sessions in there and say, Oh, it looks like we have three bandits, folks who might who who would who would be a part of these numbers here, they're in the garage, and then we communicate to the staff, hey, these three vehicles are in the garage, they're repeat offenders.
Please make sure we get the we get this we get notices on their on their vehicle to help them pay.
That's not a that's just once a day, it sounds like it's not.
We can do it as frequently as yeah, we it's it's as frequently as we do we we wish to do it, I guess.
Well, what do you what happen if somebody just keeps going in for two, three hours and leaving um and you don't catch them, they still haven't paid you you mail them the citations.
What are they a couple things?
What do you do if they don't pay?
Yeah, a couple things.
I mean, in the in a municipal environment, the the teeth, if you will, that we have as an agent of the city is eventually their registration would get held by the DMV.
So anybody who's got unpaid citations, I mean, that's what that's where it would land, that's where it would would end with them.
Now I will say with the metropolis network of locations, if they were to go to say a gated location in Washington, DC or wherever, and they owed $75 for parking in park place.
That gate won't go up until their card is processed for the session that they're in at DC and the $75 that's owed for Gots.
Those doll that $75 would then be routed to the their the that's specific to the location or zone number, specific to GOTTS night and park place each zone, and that $75 would would for that particular session.
And that $75 would would for that particular session.
So say they owed $10 for that parking that day in in DC, but also they had this outstanding 75 owed for for GOTS.
The 75 would make its way to that bank account for the city.
What's your current trigger for that?
When do you actually go to DMV to Oh DMV is uh that's part of code?
Uh it is after 60 days, I believe off the top of my head, but I can clarify that might be shorter than that.
60 days, 60 unpaid days of any of any infraction.
It's not paid after 60 days.
Yeah.
There's a pro there's an all that's also an automated process where boom we move it over to the to the DMV file and then and then it runs automatically.
Okay.
So these okay.
And do you think these non-payments the 20 for instance night, 23 in June, 23 and July, 20 and are they the same person or are they?
Wouldn't surprise me.
Good question.
Let's look into that.
Yep.
I I'd I'd be surprised.
I I'd bet uh we're betting I'd say more than half is probably are probably the same folks.
Yep.
So how's it work if they're out of state tag?
We do run their we do run their information on uh across the 50 states.
Now there are different rules in in each state for sure.
Um I will say that the I don't know why, but I know there's an effort underway.
Um you may have seen that recently in the news.
There's a there's a sad lack of reciprocation on some of this stuff between Virginia, DC, and Maryland.
DC has recently uh tasked their attorney general with finding some of these bandits, if you will, particularly with respect to to on street parking and directing their office to you know gather evidence and present cases in court.
Um many states don't you know it had don't need to resort to that because they reciprocate information sharing.
And so if uh if in that example, you know, and this is an effort that we're working at on at a corporate level, uh many states will reciprocate.
And what that means is hey, I'll send you my bandits and you'll send me your bandits, and we'll we'll each do we'll each uh, you know, if if my rules say that uh Massachusetts will hold not just registrations, but also driver's license renewals, you know, when they have that information.
And so when uh New Hampshire, Connecticut um has bandits and they have bandits, Connecticut will say, Hey, you know, here's your here's our bandits, and Massachusetts will do the same.
And the the you know, applicable laws in each state will apply to those lists regardless.
But yeah.
Um Director Moore's aware of our effort, I think, to uh we've got municipalities in Virginia.
Uh DC is of course its own unique entity, but in uh, but in particular with Virginia and Maryland, uh we have an effort underway um to ask legislatures to consider moving forward with uh a reciprocal relationship with this data, much like many other states that border each other.
And um, you know, as he's aware, I think the time will come where we ask for the city's support in that effort, uh, just as we are our partners and not just Metropolis, but but several other companies and jurisdictions representatives to to agree that hey, we want we're we all are in agreement with this analysis sort of a thing, and and uh you know, we're asking our legislatures to look seriously at changing our uh uh the reciprocal the reciprocation of our data sharing relationship.
So I do I think the time will be coming.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate that.
There's one more.
Oh, let's end on a good note.
There's one more, not on a slide.
Oh, here's there's two more.
So these are garage citation adjustments.
So I mentioned um the fact that folks have 24 hours to pay, uh, even if they leave, right, for you know, reasonable reasons.
Um, but also if um, you know, it's our policy that if uh if folks do get a citation um and they are first-time offenders, so these are your visitors to the city who you know, everyone agrees you know, we want their their experience to be a positive one.
Um sometimes it's less positive if they've left having had a great day in town for an event or whatever.
Um, and then they wind up with a citation.
Um so if folks uh make right uh this is their first time as an offender, they're not on those that repeat offender list, but they are able to pay for their session.
They pay a uh reduced fee or a not or or not the full citation amount in that first time offender category.
So that's what this represents here, leaving a hopefully a little better taste in their mouth.
Good idea.
In the process, yep.
And then the last one, which is not on a slide, is one of the things we've talked about over time.
Um the ability for us to apply the residential validation organically rather than, you know.
So we went from a system, if you'll recall when there was older equipment where folks would have chaser tickets, pieces of paper that they would have to insert reducing their fees.
Um we're now just we're at a better place now where each each resident has a has their own unique QR code that they scan for their sessions, and that's better.
And that's been you know, that's that's welcomed, of course.
Uh, but we're moving toward an it toward a place where that group is a defined unique group.
They're the residents of Annapolis, but this same concept applies in other places for other reasons.
Uh I mentioned a while back in New York, there's a there's a VIP list of sorts.
Your residents are certainly VIP, so let's think of them in the same terms there.
And um organically, the uh the discount can apply based on their inclusion in that group or that their plates inclusion in that group.
So we're getting closer.
I'm confident we're gonna be there before the year is out.
So that'll be great.
And and it's not through any, you know.
I I the fact that you're asking for it helps.
So thank you.
Thank you.
Great information.
I appreciate it.
Jason Parola representing premium parking is the uh market president.
Uh he's got the similar um information to give the same presentation as SP Metropolis did Jason Prola, Market President for Premium Parking.
Uh thanks for having us here this afternoon.
Thank you for coming.
Yeah, it's not.
Nice to see you.
Nice to see you.
It is this one was plugged in through there another cable we can.
Oh, here we go.
There we go.
Okay, so um open to any recommendations or suggestions on this if we want to see what we have here today adjusted in any way.
Uh so we will go over June, July, and August for some data as I understood the request um and provide that.
So first want to start off with occupancy.
Uh, this is through uh different segments of the day, we can drill down into specific hours if we'd like to.
And then days of the week for June.
Uh, and then this, if you if you want any more details on this or or more extrapolated data by hour or anything, let us know.
I know we want to look at some opportunities for some different programs for the businesses, especially as we hopefully move forward with City Doc soon.
Uh and we'll use this for that kind of stuff to make recommendations.
Um, and on that uh, I would just make a recommendation.
Let's connect and talk about these things.
I think if I take these to Medco and through Amber, it'll go a long way if I'm I agree and sort of recommend these things as good revenue drivers and options for people.
Uh so here's June.
July is very interesting.
We'll see anywhere from five to ten percent drops on several of the uh time frames.
Tie that to 11 days of rain in July.
Uh, we just saw a lot less tourism, and you'll see the peak, especially drop outside of sort of like the Friday, Saturday evenings when we're the busiest regardless of weather.
And then August had a fantastic recovery.
Um and was certainly the busiest month of the summer that we saw.
This was a bit last minute.
I'll make it look nicer on our next presentation.
This is just promotion promo code usage at the Hillman Garage for each month, broken out by month.
We have three promo codes that actively get used.
I believe there are a couple more that exist, like the bed and breakfast.
We just don't have participants with them that are utilizing the programs.
Uh but residents park shop and dines, and then the Mason's Lodge utilizes the garage as well.
Uh and so this is the used not issued, but used promo codes for the garage for each of those months.
Oh, you don't have that in the presentation.
No, I'm sorry, this was a last minute ad, which why I I'll also make it look a bit nicer uh and easier to read too in the next session that we have.
So these are okay, the number of people who use those promo codes.
Yes, these are these are used in the platform.
Similar question, do you have could you add in the for the future the percentage?
Yes.
So I mean I can see that you have the total June numbers, for example, 25,000 sessions.
So uh so 759 out of that 25,000, you're saying in June, anyway, used promo.
Yes, and so uh that was gonna be my question.
I based all of the percents we'll see on the next slide off of the total users each month, uh transient users, so exclusive of the whitelist employees of the city and others that go on to that uh as well as the monthly parkers.
So this is just transient.
So do you want to see it as a percent of residents that have had them issued and are using them, or do you want to see of all users, all transactions, if you will.
I think all transactions or we could do both that might be all yeah, I think all transactions for the month.
So on that chart you have for use total sessions, add a row for promo code usage.
I think absolutely.
I I will even update this and send it back out to you guys with this slide.
Uh I'll make it look a bit nicer and add that to this.
But it's um so and looking at the numbers, August had the highest sessions, but there's no real noticeable uh increase in promo code.
So I guess that what that tells me is that the actual city residents who are using that code doesn't really fluctuate too much with the season, at least not in June, July, August.
It's tourists who presumably or other visitors who boost the August numbers so much.
Yes, and if you look at this slide uh and compare June or August to July, you'll see that those weekdays have less variants in that slower July month than you'll see in the uh rest.
I I also wonder if you go back a second, yeah, for my colleague in the city manager's office to point out and for the department as we look to adjust our parking requirements in the future, especially downtown and potentially remove uh on-street parking for bike lanes.
I want to point out that there's plenty of capacity.
The only time it's typically on average, you're right, 100% filled would be that Saturday, one slot in the middle of the day.
So I'm just pointing that out because that gives us flexibility.
I think to right now we may have an excess of on-street parking.
Um, we we've been having some conversations about other kinds of programs that uh Marcus referenced earlier and uh about extending the program that we already have um at the other three garages for um employees of of other businesses extending that to Hillman for the same reason that there's there is capacity and you know uh graduated in.
So we I take your point that that part of what this says is you know, let's be aware that if we're taking away parking in some other places, that doesn't necessarily mean that we're losing parking revenue necessarily.
The goal is to shift it in places where there's capacity.
Yeah, yeah.
And so I bring that up for two reasons.
One is uh like do and this is the side track uh pardon me.
But we're talking about Duke of Gloucester and the potentially making that uh have the capability at two-way traffic, right?
Um what I've been pushing is to at the same time remove all the on street parking on that road so we can have two-way traffic with a bike lane, separate bike lane.
Um because if you're there, if you drive that late at night after our meetings, nobody's parked on that street because it's which tells me it's mostly for tourists, and this tells me we've room for the tourists in the garage.
So we don't need the on street parking in Duke Gloucester.
It's just when we have wait when we get to that point, I think we need to keep this in mind and use it to show the public that look we're removing the parking on do the Glossar or wherever, but we have plenty of space in the parking garage, right?
So we're not contributing to the park.
It's the parking shortage is a perception.
We've plenty of capacity.
And then the other thing is are city employees still prohibited from parking in this garage during the day.
No, uh city employees have been parking at Hillman um all since it since it opened.
Um the we in fact um one of the things that has been on Marcus's play for a little while is uh making sure that we're not over subscribing what is in the agreement um for that number.
So there are several of us like me who who don't park at Hillman.
I we park in other places.
Um but we have 100-ish who parked there.
The the agreement had 160 set aside.
There was a point in time where we had provided to just better serve the business needs of City Hall, issued five validators where you could validate plates for shorter term, not here all the time parkers uh who don't need a monthly pass.
And so I believe up until June sometime we had it set at 120 monthlies, and then the other I think 40 were set aside for those validations.
We went through a project where we looked at how often those validations were used, and it was nowhere near that delta.
So we increased it pretty substantially so that City Hall could have more monthly passes in it.
Uh but still were able to keep with approval the validation usage so that that dynamic solution was sort of there.
Okay.
Yeah.
Uh and on that note, I one thing I will be doing is talking with Amber and Medco.
I I think based off of this, and it's been on my mind for a while.
Uh, is to also look if we can increase the amount of monthly that we can make available to the businesses.
The 24-7 monthlies have a cap.
Uh, and I'm going to lobby to have that increased.
So it makes sense revenue wise, and it's just another it's more solutions for the business community that the wait list is over 300 business accounts.
Who knows how many cars they are going to request as well.
And it takes about three years for them to cycle through and and get an access.
Uh a little bit ad hoc too.
Uh fiscal year 2024.
Uh we did I think it was 669,000 paid transactions in the parking system.
One street, the residential uh wards, and then the garage all included.
And then FY25, it was up to 700,000.
So really nice increase there.
Are you say say that again, please?
Yeah, so we went from, and these are off the top of my head, I believe it was 669,000 transactions in FY24, uh, which the garage and concession completed on June 13th.
So call it july first through fiscal year, but uh it was 669, and uh it was 700 last year.
In the fiscal year, yeah.
Uh, which beats all the the prior 10 years historicals and the consultants' revenue models for the project, how much 700 700,000 paid transactions.
So from 690,000 up to 700,000.
Yeah.
You said that huh?
Six, oh 660.
669, yes.
And you said that C exceeded the the 10-year historicals and the revenue models uh built into the concession agreement by the consultant walker.
Um so it's working, it's being used at a a higher rate than ever.
Uh we had a I believe 2.7% increase in FY24, or I'm sorry, 25 on the on-street rates.
It was not put into place because revenue is so far beyond uh any projections that were put into place that escalator didn't need to be used.
Uh, but the average ticket was also up more than 10% over those two years as well.
So it's being utilized and um it's working well.
Good.
And improvement.
I think the big story there's improvement, right?
Uh over time we've gotten better at it.
And all right.
It shows improvement, right?
More being used, shows we've made some progress in making it easy to use.
Can you send us the financial numbers?
I don't know if you want to 10 or want to do that publicly, but the could you send the to the committee?
I would ask you to request that through the director.
Um he has to make a formal request just contractually.
Yes, uh, but it's we provide it in the monthly report, so I know that that would be something that can be provided to you.
Okay.
Um, I guess to uh director more that could could you send the monthly reports to the committee?
Yes, yes, thank you.
And if there's that 669,000 transactions, those are just paid parking in the garage.
And does that include um the $50 fine for unpaid?
It does not include the fine.
It's it's paid transactions, or if a promo code of validation is used in the platform.
Uh so it's exclusive of the monthly parkers, the residents that come and go throughout the day and park and leave.
Uh I asked if this does not it's the paid transaction.
I'm calling them permit.
Yeah.
The other uh I think neat fact again, ad hoc uh the 12 month RPP.
I was in shock when I looked at the June and July numbers because they were half of last year.
Uh and so the next step was to run outside of June and July, what happened, and it was seven RPPs different than the prior year, which my first takeaway was that's half the city's residents in the areas we service.
Um if you think about it, maybe it's certainly attractive to a young crowd that signs leases and moves in and out, and then you have St.
John's and the Naval Academy.
But the the volume, the such a high percentage of residents to see that turnover was shocking, but it worked and it went well this year.
So I think that was a great change.
Are you anything else?
One more.
Um, and so here is the Hillman Garage.
Here's some some the the bulk of the uh meat and potatoes that you asked for and the data requests.
So uh here I have June, July, and August, uh a total and then a percent of the annual or of the three-month total for each of the items requested uh that we haven't seen so far.
So we have total sessions by month.
Uh you'll see the July sessions.
Uh while occupancy was down, it was up over June.
August was a very big month.
Um, and then for the citations with no payment, you'll see those below that.
And then for the three-month total, that's 2.46% of non-monthly uh guests at the garage.
Uh vehicles with repeated unpaid during this three months, uh, and that is 0.45%, uh, which is great.
That means that when we do connect on a negative experience, they're learning how to use the system.
Uh and are not we're cutting that down by almost one sixth.
Uh if you see, and then citation is reversed.
I'm you know, a PHD put this together.
I think that there's one problem here.
These are most likely only from our customer service department and not from my local team.
There aren't a ton that aren't related to the mayor's office or that good intent letter that we've established.
So it's not a huge number, but I do believe those are missing because they live in a separate system.
Uh, as I look at it, I realize that probably is missing.
I don't know for sure, but I don't think there was one in July or zero in July and one in August.
Uh so I don't expect big jumps there, but there are some missing from those.
Uh the average length of stay is about 3.3, 3.4 hours in the garage.
Uh then our peak is very consistent.
It's four to seven.
This is adjusted from if we go back to the occupancy reports.
I should note this shows you central standard time because that's where it's all housed.
Uh so this is adjusted to show you Eastern time on this slide.
Sorry, what's listed in central?
Yeah, so the occupancy, the heat maps, if you will.
These are these times are an hour behind.
It's central standard time on this chart.
It was just manually updated on this stats data page to be Eastern time.
So the peak time on that then is uh like one to three, not 12 to or I'm sorry, it's the four and we put four to seven here because it kind of extra if you expand it, it's really four to seven is when you see that peak.
I'm confused.
So, what is on if you look at the occ on the heat map here?
What are those so the times on the far left are in central standard time?
How many hours different is that?
One hour.
Okay.
So it's really one of the things.
And so I was four.
But the time still line up though.
Oh, I guess it does.
No.
Because on the heat map, it looks like the peak is which would be one to four.
And then on the on the last one, you had four to seven is peak.
This is over the duration of this three months.
This number is the peak for the three months, not each individual month separately.
And so on my computer, if we go into that system, we can expand the blocks of time and see each time.
So this is telling you the peak times by hour, not considering the blocks that it's segmented into in the heat map.
That's a mouthful.
Uh, but I could show you in person if you'd like to see it.
Um, so because some questions on this.
Um, so for the citations, no payment.
Um, could you provide again?
I think a good better way to look at this would be percentage.
So per percentage of all the total sessions, how many?
What percentage are citations no payment?
Because then you can actually see if there's been an improvement in the percentage.
This doesn't show you necessarily improvement, because I mean it 799 still looks high, but that is an improvement when you look at the percentage, right?
Yeah, I will tell you that it is an industry that 2.46% is a great number to have.
But I don't know.
I know Marcus mentioned that when he printed this part of the cover page was cut off.
Maybe it is there, but on here the percentage is up there.
And I'll send this to you after the meeting as well directly.
Uh so on the slide on the screen, the total the percent of total is up there on the right side.
Oh, I see.
So if that cover page cut off, maybe the printer could be.
Well, I mean, I I mean showing it per month, though.
I can do that because again, then that'll indicate whether you're seeing an improvement or not.
Um, but why did you think there's the reduction in citations?
No payment, but also citations paid and overstay.
I don't understand because July was you're saying you I guess so that that's where the percentage might provide a clear picture because that would be that kind of shows what I guess changing behavior, people potentially learning the system.
I not as many violations because you're seeing just about the same usage in June and July, but they're been yeah, I didn't follow part of that.
I'm sorry for interrupting.
Um that's okay.
So yeah, so you're seeing the same usage in June and July, more or less, but the number of citations are going down, right?
And that presumably that is because hopefully people are learning how to use the system, right?
Yes.
Uh so what I would really look at for that is the vehicles with repeated unpaid, uh, which is about one sixth.
So that's great.
That means when we have this negative experience, they're appealing, they're reaching out, whatever it is, and then we're able to communicate what went wrong and how to not have that happen again.
Um yes.
Now there is a drop in July, and I can tell you that it was tied to park mobile.
So the park mobile API when people made park bomb park mobile payments, it stopped reporting to us in real time.
And when I say not real time, it was sometimes 24 hours before it was received.
And so we had to pause some enforcements so that we weren't giving tickets to people who shouldn't have had them.
Um, and so when that was done, we went back and they were issued after the fact, but we pulled out all those that had had that happen.
And others, if it was questionable, we did not send the citation.
Okay.
So the data might be a little bit that was I want to say nearly a two-week process before that API was fixed, and then they updated their end to send it properly.
All right.
Um the payments with overstay and a payment post session.
I can tell you uh that was a very manual piece to pull uh that Zachar, our director of BI pulled.
That is folks who made a payment, overstayed and left, and then more than an hour later made a payment for that difference in time.
Um and those fall under that letter we talked about when we get those calls.
So you've changed so that you're not issuing the citation until they've been out of the garage 24 hours.
If they haven't paid their overstay within 24 hours, then they're getting it's a pause, yes.
And so what happens, and so these numbers are not indicative of these segment of our guests.
Uh very few people show up here.
What happens a lot more often is they call the office and say, I forgot to pay or I stayed late, but I couldn't figure out how to pay whatever it is.
And those people we just help right there.
We don't we void that citation.
Um, but that would not report in data as it exists.
Yeah, still not a huge number, but it's not two.
Yeah, it's larger than that.
And the goal is so the goal is to shift to the new citation model in October by October.
Without going too far into it, uh we had a call earlier in the summer.
I don't recall if it was June or July.
It was discussed and and just brought up uh some Marcus sent uh a formal letter to us uh is notice and and the plan on and we talked about it was actually on the letter was to discuss that in mid-September during our meeting.
Uh great news is we had the August meeting last week.
Medco and Amber, uh, even unbannounced to me said let's do it.
Uh and so we are working on that.
I don't know what the timeline is.
I can tell you that all of the mechanics there except for the calc of the time.
I just don't know how long that's gonna take to happen.
Unfortunately, uh the uh National Park I guess parking association conference is this week.
Um, so things are a bit slower this week, but it also means that the two important folks who need to talk to each other also with each other at that conference.
So I expect that conversation will happen this week, and I might be able to have a rough idea uh in the next week.
It seems like it would be fairly I'm gonna say simple because you're reading their license plate when they enter, and you're reading it again when they leave because you know if they've overstayed their payment, but if they haven't paid at all, you know they've overstayed 3.1 hours.
Yeah, right?
Yeah, so um first, as of that phone call where we got the marching orders, we are adjusted to the $25 and the processing fee.
We are just not applying an unpaid session right now.
The only way to do that right now would be to do a flat rate.
For instance, I think it's I'm guesstimating I haven't looked at this in a while.
I want to say the average ticket is 11.
So we could punch that in, but that doesn't consider the one hour parker who would pay less, or the 24-hour parker who would pay more.
Uh so right now it's just those two things, and we did that immediately upon getting that within uh less than an hour.
Uh it doesn't seem complicated, I agree.
And to be honest, the field exists for unpaid parking.
What will take work is creating the calc of that and then applying it to the rate schedule so that it can fill that field in.
That is not in place right now.
Um working on it.
Not impossible.
I I couldn't code this.
I might be able to coerce AI into making something for this.
But getting that in place, tying the front end to the back end, and then having it tied to the the mailer is mostly there.
It's just that calc that needs to happen.
And it I've already confirmed with our product team that the uh I I was on the phone with our CTO Monday, um yesterday, Monday, yeah, that the data is pushed in that API that's creating the citations when they're identified.
So it's all there, it's just the math needs to happen, and then it needs to relate it to the rate schedule.
Would it make sense if the fees to park per hour were the same per hour instead of increasing the long?
You know, if I was part of this conversation, and I think you're you're kind of asking maybe for input here.
Uh I like this.
I think it's very friendly to a first time and second time visitor, or maybe the tenth time that had their first issue.
Uh I think it's great.
I think that a mech uh mech when you lose the teeth on compliance, which in this case is adjusting fees, uh you turn it into a more favorable, favorable math game for the two percent, or whatever percent of that two percent is actually non-compliant intentionally.
Uh so I love it.
I would love it to see it almost more like a scoff law type system where the first maybe second time it's this mechanic, and then it goes to a more significant penalty to encourage the compliance.
But that would have been the only recommendation I would have made towards this.
I think it's great overall for guests.
Yes, and residents too, right?
That it happens for them too.
Um, and I think you know, we have the repeat ones who just won't use the system, but there's a whole lot where once we hold their hand and get in touch with them, they and I see that as a positive for both parking companies.
Um we talked about the data from Metropolis and the number of people that are repeat offenders of not paying.
And if we're hitting them with 25 plus two hours, 25 plus two hours, how many times we're gonna hit them with 25 plus two hours until it should kick in that maybe it goes up to 50 plus two hours of the process, you know, like that's there's two buckets, you're 100% right.
Yeah, that might be more of a deterrent if you know that it was going up each.
That's what happens if you park on the street, right?
Very first time you get a parking ticket on the street, it's 40 and then it's 50, and then it's 150 or whatever.
Yeah, a lot.
Um, and then a tow eventually, right?
Which we don't do, but the yeah, I think we could have more to it, but it it's great as it is.
Uh I was uh the Marlins recently said um we always say the the parking experience is just like the lobby to a restaurant, right?
The sticky floors are a sticky menu, and your meal's bad, even if the meal's good, right?
Um, and and someone said to me, I've never heard them say this, and I've never considered it, but the experience starts when you leave your house.
It could be traffic, it can be all these things.
If it's bad, you're less likely to go.
So I think that this is favorable towards let's not have an apple be a bad experience for one issue, but maybe the third time let's start to enforce the policies a little bit in a more meaningful way.
Is that something you're working on incorporating then?
Yeah, it would be we have to change but yeah, I thought that um metropolis already does that.
Because you're asking about basically the the giving first time offenders a bit of a break.
I think the break would be this new the the July 1st code change that we have, yeah.
R2125.
Uh I just think that they're my I would have maybe had some more mechanics to it for the ones who continue.
Uh, but that's just a recommendation.
I thought that I thought didn't Metropolis say they had some new grace period for first-time offenders.
I I think it's the same, it's the 24 hours.
If you do something within 24 hours to make it right or to tell us you couldn't figure it out.
I I think they have it as well.
They do the same thing, I believe.
I I don't want to speak for them, but I think so.
Well, I mean so you know it's camp, it's election year campaign season.
Uh this is still for a top issue we hear about door knocking.
Uh and I think all of us have said that.
Um people are there's still a perception, there's still fear, there's still deterrence.
I've had people tell me they don't come downtown anymore because they don't because they were scared away by the 50 dollar fines that they were getting hammered with.
So what are we doing to correct that?
The fear.
It sounds like we have some fixes that are going to be in place that are currently in place.
What are we doing to change the public perception and get people to get the residents back downtown?
I don't know if that's a question for you and or the director, but uh I think it's a great question.
I think a lot will come soon.
Uh the numbers say it's a good experience with scale numbers get bigger, right?
The the percents of the numbers get larger, and so door knocking, we're we're seeing the whole city, and so you're hearing it a lot.
Um my offer stands for every business association and residential association and whatever else you could think of.
I'm always willing to show up, participate, present whatever it is.
I've sat on many couches to go over this and talk about how to present it.
I know Brendan has as well.
Uh happy to show up anywhere and do that.
Uh at the same time, we are working with Visit Annapolis visit in Aroma County on some things as well.
Uh Hillary and I have a good relationship and have had some conversations about that as well.
Uh, we'll do some business outreach for the promo codes for the parkshop and dying.
I think it's always been underutilized and a good program too.
Uh, so all of those things will start to happen.
Um slowly we'll start to roll out PICPATH, which is uh sort of a scan a QR code or get a link, it'll walk you through.
Okay, I parked here.
Here's the elevator, and you swipe.
Here's press floor one, here's the buttons, turn right here, now you're at City Hall, or now you're at Main Street, now go right to get to wherever it is.
So we'll we'll do something, we'll start to implement that.
Uh, and then we'll also utilize that for eventually the residents.
So it'll be a link.
Here's how the system works slide by slide on your phone.
You can swipe.
Here's now type here, and I'll press here and now hit submit, whatever it is.
Um, so we're working on just making it more making understanding it more accessible, right?
Well, could you clarify though?
With with the new with the legislation we passed with the new citation mop, uh are people still going to have to enter in their projected anticipated time they're gonna be at the garage.
Like they're still gonna have to say I'm playing to I'm I'm gonna be here for three hours.
Um, but if they overstay and um to four or five hours, they're gonna get that 20 some dollar plus for each hour they overstay plus so it's each hour.
So they're so they're not gonna be getting that flat $50 fine, it'll be reduced.
Um okay.
So I guess one thing I want to add, like is maybe you could work with the city public information office, but I did I can't help but to wonder if it'd be nice, helpful to send out some kind of mailer to residents that um says, hey, we've we hear you, we've made improvements to uh the parking garage downtown.
I feel like it'd be a worthwhile investment.
It'll help to drive up business.
We'll do that.
Uh I think another good story is the the promo codes, it's the same code all year.
It's just auto-renews.
Uh, we process them in like uh a week instead of five this year.
So it was a big improvement and much more accessible for them.
Uh it also saves in the profile now uh and shows them uses uh or how many uses are left for them each month, too.
Um and I will also say that premium go would be this sort of license plate mechanism.
Uh it exists, it's been in our product for years.
So don't hold me to that a while.
Um and it's still something that's actively worked on.
The problem is uh the effective rebrate of cameras.
Uh you know, a great camera system that might capture 95% of plates.
Uh there's there's two ends of that, and so both are really good installs, which are 95%.
You're actually capturing 91% of them effectively.
Uh and that's why we don't have that rolled out right now.
Um but what we do have is if you ever go to Hillman and scan the QR code, you'll see a start-stop session.
That's always been there at the top.
Uh, and so you can use that to start and stop a session that's going to represent time you're there.
Um, yes.
That is not what the agreements say uh how it should work, but through the city, it's some requests two years ago that was turned on and has always been an option for folks as well.
It's on the app.
So it's yellow text at the top.
When you scan, uh you can start a start-stop session.
Yeah, although we want to do is I mentioned earlier with our community outreach.
So some of your ward meetings, like we um we presented um for transit, the Esports Civic Association and with Alder Woman O'Neal, um, a lot of uh that ward two over at the uh stadium, but we'd like to go to other wards when you have those uh community meetings.
Um as we come into the holiday season, each year it seems like we're gonna get a little bit better with our presentations with our information and how things work.
With our PIO right now, we are working on an updated, you know, how do I get there from here?
What's the best place to park?
Uh we just started that process yesterday with um our PIO and hope to have that finished by next week.
So the month of October, we'll be ready for the rest of the year.
Because you know, a lot of things uh change with parking the day after Thanksgiving all the way through New Year's.
And each year, just bringing more and more guests downtown for um, you know, midnight madness and all the other uh fun things that are going on with uh Maryland Avenue and all.
But um, as uh Mr.
Parola said, uh if we you know can get to these civic associations and just discuss it a little more.
It's not a one and done, it's a continuum, and we do need to.
Did he say this?
So what was it said?
How do I do it?
How do we make it easier for um that to be remembered?
And some of our best um ambassadors would be uh those volunteers from the the visitor center, um, as they opened up um their your shed, their uh trailer downtown, being able to provide information on you know the public transportation that will be you know running later on and specifically parking.
We have the assets, the things we want to do with bike trails and all, and you know, we still have space.
We're not really compromising, you know, parking for bikes.
But how do we get that information out?
Because there's a lot of bad information out there.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I and I think um going to just going to maybe with representatives from both companies or or somebody from your staff, but going to places like Baywoods and walking the residents through any kind of yeah, yeah, for sure.
We'll just how do you sign up for do this in the app for go time and the whole thing?
Yeah, yeah.
They'll both be with us um with transportation on the 23rd at the visitors' center.
They um they've opened um, you know, they're really are welcoming it.
We'll have a pre-meeting to find out what their staff really wants to know more about, but it definitely is parking, it is transportation is updates on City Doc.
So with our PIO maybe, but most likely uh Hillary and uh premium and metropolis and transportation.
We got the whole gamut.
We'll give them as much time as they want.
In the past couple years, we've been going twice, spring and fall.
So we did we were there this spring, but we're we're trying to up our game a little bit to um give a bit more information and really ask what do they want versus what we think they need.
Um if I may, uh I just want to point out you know, we all are know Henry uh and what he's done with Metropolis and SP Plus over the years.
It's no secret that Andrew's uh here with me today, which I'm grateful for.
Uh so just to point that we're good at parking.
I I think you have two vendors who have very much disrupted and rethunk or rethought how parking can work versus traditional models, which is great.
Um they're here to help us be better at the community part because it's not what we do every day when we wake up.
Uh I'm great with owners and and managers of buildings and and portfolios, but I'm not a PR expert.
And so that's why they're on board.
And then they were also on brought on to sort of give people uh an indirect route to feedback, um, whether it be from the mayor's office and the council or the businesses and residents, etc.
So uh we're aware and and probably were a bit naive at one point that we're good at PR.
But there's a lot of great stories we're not telling.
Um, and more importantly, the improvements uh you probably have heard one today, I'm guessing that you weren't fully brought in on.
And so that's why we've retained them.
Yeah, I mean, that'd be good to summarize and but also once you actually make the shift to the new citation model charging model, then I think we should get a press release out.
I mean, I obviously we're in the middle of an election season.
Um, but it'd be good to correct a lot of the record that's out there.
There's a lot of bad information.
Uh I think people want to see improvement.
So faster you can get something done, the better off I think we'll be to um because again, the more obviously there's the political impact, but the more people are out there trashing the parking systems and regardless of operator, that's not good for the city.
Um it's not good for for your business.
So I I don't know if you can coordinate with the city manager's office and public information office to get some of that information out there, some of the improvements.
Yeah.
Um other last one other last number request.
Do you have the total usage of the promo codes over time?
That was on one of the slides.
Um so I'll update them with a percent of total sessions.
Yeah.
Well, so I don't see that listed on the Oh, I'm sorry, I'll I'll send you the stack.
That's right.
That was added after Marcus received this.
Yeah.
I wrote it.
Oh, you wrote that one down.
Okay.
I'll send this evening.
I'll I'll make it look a bit better, add some of these percents we talked about, and then I'll send it to the the calendar invite.
Thank you.
Yeah.
I appreciate that.
Thank you for having us.
Thank you for coming too.
Yeah.
Right.
Is there anything else, Dr.
Moore?
No, I think that's all we have, unless there's other questions that you might have um emailed in or anything.
Not so far.
Thanks for having us.
All right.
Appreciate you guys.
That concludes our agenda.
Do I have a motion to turn?
So moved.
Meeting.
Transportation Committee Meeting Summary - September 9, 2025
The Transportation Committee held a special meeting on Tuesday, September 9, 2025, from 4:02 PM to 5:43 PM. Present were Alderwoman O'Neill (Chair) and Alderman Savidge; Alderwoman Pindell Charles was absent. The meeting covered updates from the Transportation Board, the Transportation Department, and two parking contractors (SP+ Metropolis and Premium Parking), with discussions on membership diversity, EV charger reliability, scooter/bike programs, parking citation reforms, and community outreach.
Consent Calendar
- Approval of Agenda: Motion by Alderman Savidge, seconded, carried on voice vote.
- Approval of Minutes (July 9, 2025): Motion by Alderman Savidge, seconded, carried on voice vote.
Discussion Items
Transportation Board Update (Tara Ashmore, Board Chair)
- Board Membership: Ashmore reported that five of eight current board members reside in Ward 1, and she requested committee assistance in recruiting diverse representation from other wards. A vacancy exists in Ward 4, and the board secretary is inactive, delaying meeting minutes.
- Vision Zero & Pedestrian Safety: Ashmore highlighted Compromise Street as a frequent concern due to inadequate lighting and a poor crosswalk at Duke of Gloucester Street. She proposed creating a heat map of pedestrian accidents to identify priority areas, which could also inform future placement of traffic cameras. Alderwoman O'Neill noted planned bike lane additions and suggested inviting Public Works and the new traffic engineer, Jeff Wentz, to board meetings. Alderman Savidge advocated for a complete streets standard.
Transportation Department Update (Director Mark Moore)
- EV Charging Infrastructure: At Hillman Garage, one of four Level 3 fast chargers (fastest type) was non‑operational due to a fried CPU and lengthy parts delays (ABB). Cumulative downtime for Level 3 chargers was 185 days, with operational uptime of 81%; Level 2 chargers currently have 100% uptime. Other garages: Gots Court Garage (all chargers operational), Night and Garage (oldest, all functional but aging), Park Place Garage (one charger out, modem replaced twice). Repair delays were attributed to ABB’s supply chain and communication lapses with their service company, InCharge. Staff now makes daily follow‑up calls. The city will add stickers on chargers for easier reporting and is considering alternative vendors (Alderman Savidge expressed frustration and requested future avoidance of ABB).
- Bird Bike & Scooter Program: Bird notified the city that it cannot continue service (pilot had three one‑year options through spring 2026). Procurement for a new vendor will begin promptly; the city wants a mix of bikes and scooters. The program was well‑used but poorly managed toward the end.
- Council Resolution R2125: This resolution distinguishes on‑street vs. off‑street parking violations. On‑street expired meter fines remain $50 (no grace period). Off‑street (garage) violations are reduced to $25 plus a $5.25 processing fee plus the cost of the parking session. Implementation is targeted for early October 2025 (October 1 or October 6), coordinated with both parking contractors to avoid confusion.
- Microtransit & Outreach: Microtransit ridership exceeds last year by double digits; summer transit ridership was slightly lower. Upcoming outreach includes a session with the Visitors Center on September 23 and familiarization tours for the new council.
SP+ Metropolis Parking Update (John Kemp, Regional Manager, and Jason Kinee, Senior Manager)
- Data Presentation: Provided length‑of‑stay, peak occupancy, infraction, unpaid time, and repeat‑offender data for June–August. Grace‑period sessions (under 15 minutes) remain high. Peak occupancy occurs at Park Place (hotel component). Residents’ two‑hour free validation usage will be added as a percentage in future reports.
- Citation Automation: Following passage of R2125, the garage citation process for non‑payment will become automated, freeing up staff. The 24‑hour window for payment after departure will be more proactively communicated.
- First‑Time Offender Policy: Citations may be voided for first‑time offenders who show good intent (e.g., accidental wrong‑zone payment). Repeat offenders face DMV registration holds after 60 days; the system also notifies staff of vehicles with outstanding debt.
- Out‑of‑State Tags: Working to improve reciprocity with Virginia and DC for collection.
- Residential Validation: Moving from individual QR codes to organic license‑plate‑based application by end of 2025.
Annapolis Premium Parking Update (Jason Prola, Market President)
- Occupancy & Promo Codes: July saw a 5–10% drop due to 11 days of rain; August recovered. Promo code usage (residents, park‑shop‑dine, Mason’s Lodge) was shown as raw numbers; future reports will include percentages. Average length of stay is 3.3–3.4 hours.
- Hillman Garage Capacity: Only Saturday midday reaches near‑100% occupancy. Prola noted that on‑street parking removal (e.g., for bike lanes on Duke of Gloucester) is feasible given garage capacity. City employees currently use about 100 of 160 reserved monthly passes. A waitlist of over 300 business accounts exists; Prola will advocate for increasing the monthly cap.
- Financial Performance: FY25 had 700,000 paid transactions, up from 669,000 in FY24, exceeding the consultant’s revenue model. The on‑street rate increase was not needed. Average ticket rose over 10% in two years.
- Citation Data: Citations with no payment were 2.46% of non‑monthly guests; repeated non‑payment (0.45% of vehicles) decreased about sixfold when customers learned the system. July data affected by a ParkMobile API issue (resolved). The new citation model (R2125) is being implemented; calculating overstay charges on a per‑hour basis is a technical challenge being addressed.
- Public Perception & Outreach: Prola acknowledged fear of $50 fines deterring residents. He offered to present at civic and business associations. The city is updating a “how‑to” guide with PIO, working on a QR‑code wayfinding tool (PICPATH), and planning a mailer to residents highlighting improvements.
Key Outcomes
- Approved: July 9, 2025 meeting minutes.
- Requested Reports: Alderman Savidge requested that Director Moore send the monthly Premium Parking reports to the committee, and that future data include percentages.
- New Vendor Procurement: Staff will begin procurement for a new bike/scooter vendor (replacing Bird) in spring 2026, with a RFP to be issued soon.
- Fine Reduction Implementation: Target early October 2025 for unified rollout of reduced off‑street citation fees ($25 + processing fee + session cost) across all four garages.
- EV Charger Improvements: Staff to improve repair reporting (stickers) and explore alternative vendors; Alderman Savidge asked for a review of ABB’s performance.
- Public Communications: Committee urged coordinated press release and mailer once the new citation system is operational, to correct negative perceptions.
- Follow‑Up: Premium Parking will send updated slides with promo code percentages and per‑month citation breakdown. Metropolis will add percentage of residents using validation.
Meeting Transcript
The transportation committee meeting on Tuesday, September 9th, 2025. This time I will do roll call. Right. Alderman Savage. Present. Arma O'Neill present. And Alderwoman Rhonda Pendel Charles is not present. I have a motion to approve the agenda as written. So move. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Have a motion to approve minutes from 7925. So moved. Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Great. Right into general discussion. Our first item on the agenda is the transportation board update with Tara Ashmore. Welcome. Thank you for coming. Hi. Good afternoon. Two items. One would be to talk about membership on the board. And the second item would be to talk about vision zero and pedestrian safety in Annapolis. All right. Is your mic on? It's green. Okay. Can you pull it a little closer? Thank you. Is that better, you guys? Yeah. So on the uh transportation board, uh, we do have some core members and then we have some other members that seem to uh sort of um wave in and out. Um I don't mind having a small board. What I do uh have concerns about is really a board that represents all of the community. So we would just ask you and if you could share it with your council members that we would seek input to have a diversified group uh across all the different wards, and if they have any ideas, um if they could, if you could let me know or Kurt, we'd be happy to track those down. Uh Kurt is sort of becoming a little in-house membership committee on his own, uh, which is sort of helpful to have. But um, you know, we do seek out people, but again, I would like to really see representation across all the wards. Right now we're really are getting fairly concentrated in ward one. Um that's somewhat exacerbated by the fact that we have representation from St. John and representation from the Academy, in addition to I think at least three members that are all Ward One. So it's a significant, I would say that's five out of eight. So seek your support and help on that. And is that makeup because there's been um vacancies? I know that there's a vacancy from Ward 4, I believe, board. Yes, as well as just a uh a higher number of um recommendations that turn out to be people in ward one.
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