After a “perceived enforcement holiday” at the town-run parking lots at the two train stations in Darien, enforcement is back in force, with more than 70 tickets issued last week, more than 100 on Monday and another 160-plus on Tuesday.
Darien Railroad Station Darien Train Station
Darien Railroad Station (photo by Picabu on Wikimedia Commons)
That’s about 330 tickets as of Tuesday. Some of the tickets issued last week were in error — the drivers of about 11 ticketed vehicles had actually paid, but because one of the pay stations was offline, their payment didn’t get recorded, said Jim Cameron, who has been tapped as the new chairman of the town Parking Advisory Commission.
Parking-fee enforcement had been on hiatus for a while while the town worked on some technical problems with its license-plate reader devices. Those problems have now largely been solved, officials indicated.
“We’re sorry, but you have to, in fact, pay for your parking,” First Selectman Jayme Stevenson said at Monday night’s Board of Selectmen meeting.
The town mailed letters to commuters who were on the long list of those with parking permits at the two railroad stations. A total of 833 responses came back from Noroton Heights station commuters who wanted to keep their places on the list, and another 617 for commuters at Darien Railroad Station, Town Administrator Kathleen Buch told the board.
But no response came back from 260 commuters on the wait list at Noroton Heights and another 140 at the Darien station wait list, as of the Feb. 1 deadline, Buch said.
Late responses are still trickling in, and the town may get more responses in upcoming days and weeks from commuters asking to be taken off the wait list, she said.
“We’re looking to sell some more permits at Leroy West (parking lot at Darien Railroad Station) and at Noroton based on people who did not renew,” Buch said. The town will send out 50 more permits to those on the wait list for the Noroton Heights station and another 25 for those at the Darien station, she said.
“Were also taking count at the stations to see at different points during the day, different days of the week, how many spaces are empty in the permit lots,” Buch said. Based on what they find, town officials may send out more permits, she said.
Alternately, she said, she may come back to the board “and […] suggest opening up the lots to day parkers at an earlier hour — instead of 10 o’clock, maybe at an earlier hour. We’ll know better when we get some more counts.”
The town’s license-plate reader system (LPR) is working and is more efficient than the lower-technology system it replaced, Buch said.
The LPR, operated by a parking ranger in the town-owned lots at Darien and Noroton Heights railroad stations, still has trouble reading the state’s relatively new seven-digit license plates, and it can mistake some numbers and letters (mistaking an “O” for a “D,” for instance).
So the parking ranger needs to check the list of seven-digit license plates read that day by the LPR device to see that no errors were made. The plates are in alphanumeric order, making that job easier, Buch said, but she added that it would be easier still if the devices’ software allowed for a search of a plate on the list.
Representatives from the company that provides the license plate reader to the town were expected to visit town this week, and that may lead to improvements in the devices and their software, Buch said.
How to decide to change permit and day-parking prices
The town now charges $345 per year for annual parking permits, but for those still undergoing the years-long wait for one, day parking prices are considerably higher — $3 per day. That day rate is significantly lower than the $5 charged at other area train stations, but significantly higher than the permit parking cost.
“I think it’s time to look at raising the rates,” Stevenson said, although that didn’t mean immediately: When Selectman Susan Marks said the board should make a decision later this year, after the Legislature’s session ends, Stevenson agreed, saying, “We don’t typically change rates until the fall.” The Legislature’s session is expected to end in May.
Stevenson said that any decisions on parking rates are complicated because the town may wind up not collecting them if the state takes over control of the stations. The state, which owns train stations in the state and leases them out to municipalities for parking-fee collection and station maintenance work, has refused to renew lease agreements (opting instead to lease the stations on a month-to-month basis, which can be quickly changed).
A state takeover might create a revenue source for the state to finance Gov. Dannel Malloy’s expensive proposal for massive transportation spending, Stevenson said.
Selectman Rob Richards said he liked the way the Metropolitan Transportation Authority raises rates — gradually, in small increments that are announced months, sometimes years in advance.
Stevenson told the board that selectmen in the past have voted on parking fee changes at one time of the year for day-rate commuters and at another time for those with parking permits.
She said selectmen also have been reluctant to raise the rates to something closer than the rest of the train stations in Connecticut or adjust rates to make them more equal between the two types of fees charged in Darien.
Selectman Charles Koons said he agreed that the decisions on parking rates should be made at the same time. Koons, whose family owns a parking lot next to the Darien Railroad station, said he would recuse himself from any votes on setting rates for the town-owned lots. That didn’t stop him on Monday from discussing other matters related to the lots.
Should Darien have a parking commission?
Stevens also suggested that the board should look into whether or not it should create a parking commission that would be more knowledgable about the intricacies of parking-enforcement technology and less prone to public pressure when it came to setting rates.
Selectmen Marc Thorne said he might not support that idea, although he liked the idea in the past.
On the one hand, he said, “We’re supposed to be a policy body and we find ourselves mired in these [parking] complexities.” On the other hand, he added, “Jayme, you said it’s kind of a political issue. Yeah, and it really is — and we are elected officials, so I’m still wavering on whether a parking commission is appropriate.”
Koons said, “I think a parking commission is essential [but] I still think the Board of Selectmen or other authorities can have the ultimate final thumb-print as to whether the rates go up.”
Employee parking permits
The town issues $85-a-year permits to various businesses in town for employee parking. Marks said she’d like the board to review how the town provides that parking.
Buch said: “We need to talk about management of those […] When I say management, I’m talking about trying to do a better job of distributing them and making sure they’re not abused in any way.”
Temporary parking — in the air
Richards said he’d found some information on an interesting idea that Darien might try when the platform-replacement project at the Noroton Heights station gets underway and removes some parking so that equipment, materials and work on the platforms have enough room to get that job done.
(That project is scheduled to happen starting in the spring of 2017 and continuing through 2018.)
The idea is to have a temporary parking platform allowing cars to park both on top and underneath. It would be set up in a parking lot and increase its capacity.
Richards handed out printouts from this Web page, which features an article about the parking structure made of galvanized steel. It takes about six days to install the structure in a parking lot, according to the article. When no longer needed, it can be disassembled and taken away.
The article says that no new foundation would be needed, and the structure would rest on an existing parking lot, not damaging it.
“I thought this was pretty cool,” Richards said. “It could double our parking.”
Stevenson pointed out that “we’re not displacing an inordinate number of parking spaces with the project,” but she liked the idea anyway. “People, I would imagine, in about 30 minutes will love this and won’t want us to get rid of it. This is great. Thank you for sharing this.”
Stevenson said that she’ll ask Planning Director Jeremy Ginsberg about the idea, which would require approval of one or more town land-use boards.
If the Noroton Heights Railroad Station building were replaced (an idea that’s come up), that could displace a large number of parking spaces for a while.