City of Saint Joseph opts to put paid parking on pause

SAINT JOSEPH, Mich. -- The City of Saint Joseph is putting a pause on the newly established paid parking program.

The reason? Some of the parking meters are not ADA compliant.

The meters in some of the paid parking lots are placed on a median that would be difficult, even impossible for handicapped folks or wheelchair users to get up to.

City staff is taking the time to address the problem and halting paid parking effective immediately.

However, some residents and business owners don't want the program to come back.

"At the rate this is going, we believe our downtown businesses will not be able to operate during the fall and winter months because of the loss of revenue since day one of the program," said a local business owner during Monday evening's City Commission meeting.

A group of downtown Saint Joseph business owners took to the podium together on Monday to urge the city commission to take a harder look at the paid parking program.

"The plan that is implemented now is not working," says Ken Kozminski, owner of The Buck Burgers and Brew.

Kozminski and other business owners claim downtown shops are already seeing a loss of revenue even after the city made a change last week to make the paid parking window from 9a- 5p every day, instead of 9a-9p.

"We surveyed 23 businesses again this weekend after the changes were made and we're averaging 38% revenue decline since the beginning of this program," Kozminski explains.

The newest change though, announced Monday night, is that there will be a pause in the paid parking program to make sure the parking kiosks are ADA compliant.

The ones that are placed on top of medians are not accessible to everyone.

"We just need to go through really and do more of that in-depth learning and research on how we can adjust the meters or the curbs, whether that's changing the placement of the meters or making changes to the accessibility of the medians themselves," says Kayla Griffith, Director of Communications and Special Projects for the City of Saint Joseph.

Beyond accessibility, were a number of stories about how the kiosks themselves have been tricky to use for visitors.

"I watched an older couple struggling for seven minutes trying to figure out the kiosk," one resident shared.

"I noticed they were struggling so I walked over to help, what they couldn't figure out was how to add more time. You have to really read all those instructions," said another resident who works downtown.

Even though the city says they will take this pause to speak further with stakeholders about the future of paid parking, they say the program stemmed from trying to solve another parking issue.

"When we did our Downtown Vision Master Plan, we surveyed about 6,000 people; that includes residents, that includes visitors to our downtown, that included some businesses. The number one issue that came up was the issue of parking downtown and parking availability," Griffith explains. "So, this program really was designed to free up availability."

Business owners fear what their peak season will look like this summer if paid parking is part of that equation.

"The long-term impacts of this are enormous if they don't make drastic changes immediately and stop this so we can get those people back in our community and keep those businesses alive," Kozminski says.

Even though paid parking is on hold for now, the city says the time limits will still be enforced. For most spaces downtown, there are 3-hour time limits.