New, better parking system to take effect

Will it finally work this time? Fingers crossed. The city of La Crosse is about to flip the switch on a new pay-to-park system in its municipal ramps. Again. Three years after first adopting the ticket and gate system in the downtown ramps, what we hope is a much better system will replace it, perhaps starting this week. The first ramp could adopt the new system this week, and the remaining ramps by Labor Day. once that happens, the gates will be removed. The system which is being replaced cost taxpayers a half-million dollars, plus the cost of replacing all those broken gates. People were literally trapped inside the ramps by malfunctioning gates, some had the gates come down on them as they tried to leave. It was an expensive and abysmal failure. And the costs keep going up. Since we first started charging to park we have created the new position of Parking Utility Coordinator, and bought a fleet of vehicles for use by parking staff. We have spent a lot, but somehow, so far have yet to even break even. This is supposed to bring in money, not cost taxpayers. Perhaps this time the city will finally get it right. Because it really shouldn’t be that complicated.