Asbury Park court swamped by parking tickets
Larger signs ordered to acclimate beachfront visitors to pay stations
BY NANCY SHIELDS COASTAL MONMOUTH BUREAU AUGUST 30, 2008
ASBURY PARK City officials Friday said they will order and post larger signs
perhaps
12 by 18 inches directing people to the new beachfront pay stations at each
intersection, where they can pay for the newly numbered parking spot they
parked in.
Police have issued hundreds of parking tickets since Asbury Park began
enforcing metered
parking on the beachfront two weeks ago. The cost of a ticket for not paying to
park is
$26.
Smaller signs now are posted in the middle of each block, but it will take more
to get
people to adjust to paid parking in Asbury Park once again, officials said.
Municipal Judge
Mark T. Apostolou let municipal officials know that his court is being swamped
with the
tickets and something needs to be done.
Asbury Park has not required people to pay for parking in most places for many
years, in
part because the old meters broke and never were fixed.
With the revival of the beachfront and downtown, the city moved to collect
parking
revenue and has set up about 2,100 numbered spaces on the beachfront to be
governed
by the pay stations. People enter the number of their parking spot and pay
either with
coins, bills or a credit card. The cost is 50 cents an hour.
City officials Friday could not say how many tickets have been written in the
two-week
period. Anthony Nuccio, the director of social services, who is filling in for
City Manager
Terence Reidy while Reidy is on vacation, said he was told that several hundred
tickets
were written each week during that two-week period.
But an update for the full two weeks was not available, he said.
Nuccio said the city is addressing individual concerns or glitches people may
have
experienced operating the pay stations.
People should hold on to their receipts but do not have to put them in their
car windows.
Police monitor what parking spots have been paid for both on hand-held
computers or at
headquarters and can issue tickets when a numbered space has not been paid for
but a
car is parked there.
City Engineer Brian Grant is in charge of monitoring the new system and said 27
pay
stations are up and operating. There are five more to be installed, and Grant
said three of
those may be placed on the boardwalk so people can feed additional money if
they have
gone past their time limit. A person can pay for a parking spot at any pay
station.
Paid parking is enforced from 9 a.m. to 2 a.m. Parking on Ocean Avenue is
limited to three
hours before a customer has to pay additional money. Parking on the east-west
avenues
in one block to Kingsley Street is limited to six hours at a time. Parking on
Kingsley is
allowed up to 12 hours at a time.
When a person wants to get additional time for a spot, they should enter the
space
number and the ID number on their receipt, Grant said.
The city bonded to spend about $428,000 for the 32 pay stations and is paying
debt
service of $55,000 per year. In future phases, the city will install the pay
stations at other
sections of the city, including the downtown and Main Street.
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