Driving around a residential block in Madison several times in search of a parking space has become the norm of late, as many students exceed the two-hour street parking limit without a permit and do not receive a written violations for it.
The Madison Police Department's lackluster parking enforcement is catching up with it, as well. Recently, The MPD announced that it is $500,000 short of the $5.5 million in projected revenue from parking violations for 2008. This amount accounts for 17 percent of the anticipated $2.98 million shortfall projected by the MPD this year..
Officials have found it difficult to determine the exact cause of this decrease. City Council board members claim a marked reduction"" in violations, while the MPD cites staffing problems and increased civil compliance with parking laws.
The inability to account for this shortfall is the product of attempting to pay for governance with money that is not guaranteed. Attempting to project an amount of people who will be ticketed not only proves unpredictable in supplying a financially-starved budget, but also proves extremely ineffective, evidenced by the last two years of missing revenue projections from parking violations.
Regardless of the exact problem, the city would be wise to improve the overall appeal of their residential street parking permit program. The Madison Parking Utility can easily increase the miniscule cost of $21 while increasing public knowledge of this permit as a viable parking option. The increased revenue would support the cost of improved regulation of on-street meter, two-hour, and alternate-side parking zones.
Increased regulation would create a greater guarantee of on-street parking, and would surely attract students paying upward of $100 per month for private parking. This would generate more money for the city as a whole and allow more flexibility in allocating guaranteed and up front - rather than projected - money to its various departments.
Although this is only a small step in addressing Madison's parking dilemma, the city must take a practical step its governance with actual money to improve the enforcement and availbility of on-street parking.
