Parking, tickets costs to increase in Allentown as Parking Authority works to balance budget

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Allentown Parking Authority officials are weighing a slew of price increases as officials try to dig their way out of a large budget hole.

The agency is about $1.8 million short of its projected budget for 2023, due in large part to its reduction in enforcement last year.

The Allentown Parking Authority was directed in fall 2022 to take over enforcement of the city’s parking ordinance.

The agency brought in “very consistent” revenues for several months, which officials used to create the 2023 budget, according to Ted Zeller, who chairs the agency’s board.

But Allentown City Council ordered the parking authority to end its 24/7 enforcement by prohibiting active patrols overnight and on Sundays just four months into 2023.

That move cut the agency’s active patrol hours by almost half — and put a $1 million hole in its budget, Zeller said.

The Allentown Parking Authority also spent $400,000 more than budgeted on interest payments for the Maple Street garage and an equal amount on “unforeseen repairs” at the Spiral Deck, he said.

“We want to make sure it is in tiptop shape for when Da Vinci (Science Center) comes to town this summer,” Zeller said.

The Allentown Parking Authority has a reserve fund of about $2.4 million, so the budget shortfall “is not a 'the sky is falling' moment,” he said, while emphasizing the agency must act to change its outlook.

Climbing costs

The Allentown Parking Authority is set to raise rates in its parking decks and the price of permits for surface lots and decks, while ratcheting back up its enforcement of double-parking violations.

The Allentown Parking Authority board last year ordered enforcement officers to honk their horns and wait 90 seconds before writing double-parking citations.

But that initiative “just wasn’t working,” as many people would just drive around the block and before double-parking again, Zeller said.

Enforcers still will “encourage” people who are in their double-parked vehicles to move but will be quicker to write citations, he said.

The agency projects that a series of internal policy changes will bring in more than $1 million

'Adjusting the levers'

Allentown Parking Authority officials soon will ask City Council to raise street parking rates in the Central Business District from $2 an hour to $2.50 an hour. That could generate another $104,000 by the end of 2024, according to the parking authority’s projections.

Raising rates for on-street spots will encourage more people to use parking decks for longer stops in the city, Zeller said.

Not increasing on-street rates is “just going to encourage people to get parking tickets because they're paying about the same as they (would) if they went into a deck,” Zeller said.

Parking authority officials also will urge council to bring the city’s parking-violation fines in line with regional rates, Zeller said.

Citations for almost all types of parking violations are cheaper in Allentown than any comparable city in the region — Bethlehem, Easton, Reading, Lancaster and York — with tickets set at $15 for a slew of first-time offenses, according to statistics provided by the parking authority.

The city’s $100 fine for double parking is the only violation that costs more in Allentown than most other cities in the region.

Many of the city’s parking violation rates “haven’t been raised in 20 years,” Zeller said.

“Parking penalties are critical to the math” of filling the budget hole, he said.

Zeller said he expects some backlash from residents against the Allentown Parking Authority in the face of higher fees.

“Nobody wants to pay more for parking, and nobody wants to get a parking ticket,” he said. “And nobody wants to pay for a parking ticket that’s more expensive than the last parking ticket they got.”

Many of the changes the Allentown Parking Authority implemented last year helped alleviate residents’ widespread rage about the agency, but some initiatives need to be tweaked, Zeller said.

“We're trying to adjust the levers the right way,” he said.