City to roll back meter hours

The parking meter enforcement hours might roll back to their previous hour of 6 p.m., depending… The parking meter enforcement hours might roll back to their previous hour of 6 p.m., depending on the outcome of a final City Council vote next week.

A preliminary vote yesterday passed 8-1 to suspend the extended enforcement hours approved in June for Oakland, Shadyside, the North Shore, South Side, Downtown, the Strip District and Squirrel Hill. The final vote will be on Tuesday, and if passed, will keep the suspension until Jan. 1, 2012.

Pittsburgh expanded parking meter hours and increased rates this summer in neighborhoods throughout the city, including Oakland. The changes, which took effect June 1, are part of Pittsburgh’s pension bailout plan, meant to prevent a state takeover of the fund.

City Council enacted a five-year series of rate schedules that extended the hours of parking meters around Oakland by four hours. However, City Council voted Wednesday to roll back the enforcement times.

Council members cited public outcry and lack of understanding on why the city increased prices and enforcement hours as their reasons to push back enforcement from 10 p.m. to the original time of 6 p.m.

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said he supports City Council’s decision to cut back hours but is still concerned with its plan to increase rates and enforcement hours as a way to save the city’s pension fund from state takeover.

“The real issue is what does that action do to the pension fund and the potential takeover of our pension fund, so if we can figure out a way to avert state takeover and control the pension fund and rollback enforcement hours to 6 p.m., I would be a supporter of that,” Ravenstahl said over the weekend.

The plan increased rates from 70 cents, 50 cents and 50 cents to $1.50, $1.00 and 75 cents, respectively, throughout Oakland’s districts. The rates will not change regardless of if the vote passes

City Council’s plan will also replace some of the old meters around the city with multispace meters capable of accepting credit cards similar to those around Schenley Plaza. The job has already been bid on, and the revenues are in place to have these installed sometime in the fall, according to John Fournier, a spokesman for councilwoman and Parking Authority board member Natalia Rudiak.

City Council voted Dec. 31 to raise revenue for the city’s pension fund by increasing meter rates and expanding enforcement hours without the support of Ravenstahl and the Parking Authority.

The mayor’s plan, which was to privatize city parking and lease out the meter system to JP Morgan Chase & Co., was rejected by City Council in December. His 50-year plan included a $452 million lease of parking garages and meters to the private investors.

The city does not have the authority to raise local municipal service taxes, so solutions for the pension fund centered around parking. Any tax increase would have to be approved by the state legislature.

The mayor said privatizing the meters is off the table.

“That issue has been vetted thoroughly and council sent a message that they didn’t want to do that, and while I don’t agree with that — it’s part of the reason we are having the problems we are now — that issue is over, and we’ll deal with the situation as is now, and we need to find a way to fund our pension,” Ravenstahl said.

Since the city owns the meters, the Parking Authority was required to increase the rates and expand the hours as City Council dictated. But because of a previous agreement, the Authority gets to keep most of the meter revenue and pays the city an annual subsidy.

Ravenstahl said he will keep working with City Council to fix the problem.

“It’s not ideal in the first place to increase the enforcement hours or the rates, but we did so because we had a pension problem, and we’re trying to solve it. And so if there is a way to avoid it, we want to be supportive of that, and we will work with council to try and figure it out.”