If you’ve noticed problems with Bloomington parking meters in the past several months, you’re not alone.
Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton found, after his first month in office, almost all parking meters had malfunctioned in some way since their installation in May 2013.
The City of Bloomington purchased 1,500 of these new parking meters from a San Diego, California, vendor called IPS, according to a press release from the City of Bloomington. The total cost of all of these meters was $1,865,175.
Because of these issues, according to the release, all meters were sent back to San Diego between September and December 2015 for repairs and sent back to Bloomington for re-installation.
Hamilton has been working with several city departments to ensure the smooth workings of parking meters since.
The City of Bloomington, which purchased software to track the amount of money put into each meter when the meters themselves were purchased, has been tracking each meter through the City Information Technology Services department.
According to the release, the department had found problems coming in at a rate of 277 per month and having an overall failure rate of 18 percent monthly before the repairs took place.
Some of the main issues that are actively being or have been resolved include inoperable credit card readers, dead batteries, coins getting stuck and no backlighting at night.
Since the City of Bloomington is paying off the parking meters in semi-annual installments, they expect to complete payments by July of 2017.
The release states that Hamilton and the City of Bloomington will continue to be transparent about parking meter issues and work with IPS to resolve them as quickly as possible.
Anicka Slachta
