City of Kent finishes parking meter installation

The citizens of Kent heard about the new parking meters when they were proposed, they saw their posts slowly make their way in front of many of the 2-hour parking spots lining the streets of downtown Kent, and now they are finally obligated to abide by them.
The city of Kent entered an agreement with the parking meter contractor IPS Group on Nov. 14 of last year, assenting to the purchase of 230 brand new Smart Meters to be installed in downtown Kent.
According to a press release on Sept 22, 2014 by kentohio.org, single-space meters will be installed in 225 of the 1,150 spaces downtown. The release states that the purpose of the meters is to “help support Kent’s downtown merchants who rely on frequent turnover of customer parking.”

While the posts for the meters stood for weeks, the meters themselves were installed in full by late April and were functional by May 5.
Kent Community Development Director Bridget Susel said that although the meters went live May 5, drivers won’t be fined for violations for nearly two weeks.
“The (Kent) Police Department will be issuing only enforcement warnings for meter violations through May 17,” Susel said. “Enforcement with monetary fines will start on May 18.”
According to multiple sources, the meters were anticipated to be installed and working by 2014’s holiday season to help increase traffic for small businesses downtown.
City of Kent Police Lt. James Prusha said he wasn’t sure why the installation of the meters was so delayed.
The smart meters, just like the ones installed throughout Kent State’s campus, accept credit, debit and coins as forms of payment.
To start, the meters will run Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Prusha said some changes had to be made to accommodate the new parking meters.
“There has been a new city ordinance put into place so we can ticket people who don’t keep up on their meters, because I don’t think we had a parking violation that said ‘past the time on the meter,’ ” Prusha said.
Prusha said the police department also had to make some changes.
“The other thing we are doing is hiring another (officer),” Prusha said. “We have one compliance officer now who is in charge of parking and animals. We are going to have two in the future, one is going to be primarily focused on the parking downtown.”
As the meters may be more convenient for customers, employees downtown expressed some concern.
Senior marketing major and barista at Tree City Coffee & Pastry Beth Svoboda said some days she has to drive around for 20 minutes, not being able to find a parking spot.
“We don’t have employee parking, so I park in the free parking under the bridge,” Svoboda said. “I feel like people aren’t going to want to pay the meters and they’ll park under the bridge. Then what am I supposed to do?”
According to the kentohio.org press release, this is not the first time the City of Kent has seen parking meters. In the 1970s, the city had approximately 400 meters.
The installation of the parking meters is the city’s latest piece in the plan for redevelopment in downtown Kent.

Check out the parking-map here.

For more information about the smart meters, visit http://www.ipsgroupinc.com/kent/more/more.html.