Watch As City Changes Parking Signs Then Issues Tickets To Cars That Had Been Parked Legally. Finding a parking spot in many major cities can be a pain in the butt, as you not only navigate the streets but have to be mindful of “No Parking,” “No Standing,” and any other number of signs that regulate where, and for how long, you can deposit your car. So once you find a spot and check all the signs, you should be good, right? Not if the city comes by and changes the signs on you. http://tinyurl.com/mfvpce9

Real-Time Parking Startup ParkMe Launches An Android App.. Real-time parking startup ParkMe wants to help find you parking — in real-time. The company, which originally started out on the Web, has been making a big push behind mobile apps, which is really smart, because most times when you’re looking for parking, you’re not on a PC, but you have a smartphone nearby. http://tinyurl.com/kowy26b

Businesswoman fined for parking on 'wobbly' yellow lines that shouldn't have been there ~ A motorist was slapped with a parking ticket after fake yellow lines were painted in her street, which a traffic warden thought were real. Tanya Blackman, 37, came home to find the markings had appeared in her road in Truro, Cornwall. Miss Blackman said residents face fierce competition for a handful of parking spaces and she realised the 'wobbly' lines were a ruse. http://tinyurl.com/amkdgnn

Car-share parking coming curbside. Hundreds of on-street parking spaces will be set aside for car-sharing vehicles this fall as part of a city-led effort to reduce private-car ownership in San Francisco. http://tinyurl.com/b3a6gf2

USC's Coliseum Take-Over Bid Slowed By Parking Lots. | california state legislature, expo park, exposition park, Los Angeles, los angeles memorial coliseum, los angeles memorial coliseum commission, parking, parking lots, revlon run/walk, roderick wright, sb 695, senate bill 695, Shrine Auditorium, university of southern california, USC

D.C. parking ticket exposes pay-by-cell glitch. A system glitch in a pay-by-cell D.C. parking system left a Fairfax, Va., man the victim of an erroneous ticket, a WTOP TicketBuster investigation has found. Jeff Liang was visiting the Smithsonian when the Jan. 14 ticket was issued for failing to display a multi-space meter receipt in the 900 block of F Street NW. A D.C. Department of Public Works (DPW) employee ticketed Liang at 5:55 p.m. http://tinyurl.com/bogs7ub

Cocoa Beach leaders hang up on downtown phone-parking plan. Though the green-painted curbs remain, the confusing, unpopular pay-by-smart-phone parking program won’t return to the downtown shopping  district. Instead, Cocoa Beach leaders are exploring costs to add MobileNOW! phone-pay technology as a coin-free alternative for the city’s existing 750 metered spaces at “stub-end” beach streets and parking lots, City Manager  Bob Majka said. http://tinyurl.com/cybxmmr

Street parking raises concerns in Regina neighbourhood. Rod Kletchko said there are times when he feels like he is in an episode of the reality television show Parking Wars. However, unlike the show's focus on parking enforcement, he said in his Cathedral neighbourhood, "you can do whatever you want and not get a ticket." Kletchko, who has lived on the 2000 block of Robinson St. for two years, has called the City of Regina several times to complain about the parking situation. http://tinyurl.com/cxl7eer

Business struggles with not enough parking. A popular eatery on North Chester is creating a parking nightmare for a neighboring business. One businesses parking lot has become an overflow parking for the other during the lunch rush. http://tinyurl.com/c8yv99p

New details in Mayor Emanuel’s parking meter bargain. More details of Mayor Emanuel’s parking meter bargain are starting to emerge. According to Crain’s, the City of Chicago will regain control of 16 parking lots, and will have the option of closing the lots for street festivals and farmer’s markets. In return, the private operator Chicago Parking Meters LLC, will take control of another 900 metered parking spaces on the near North Side. Users of those spaces will have to pay through midnight instead of 9 p.m. Sunday parking won’t be free in that area. http://tinyurl.com/cot9uxn 

City to double parking rate downtown to $1 per hour. If you drive downtown, you'll be paying double to park at a meter - once downtown streets are re-opened enough for anyone to drive there and reach a parking meter. The City Council unanimously approved a Parkwise proposal to double downtown meter rates from 50 cents to $1 per hour. Rate increases downtown are slated to take effect next April, when most of the construction for the new streetcar should be complete. Parkwise is more than $100,000 in the red this year because the construction cut off access to hundreds of meters. http://tinyurl.com/d3t2qyl

Neil Edwards, President of PangoUSA, has announced that its Israel-based parent company’s pay-by-phone street parking system is now available to US cities and parking operators. Auburn, NY, and Latrobe, PA, are the first two US cities to have agreements to use the Pango Street Parking system. PangoUSA is in discussion with other urban centers across the country.  

 

Cooper Lighting has joined the California Lighting Technology Center (CLTC) at the University of California-Davis as an affiliate partner. The company said it will collaborate with the CLTC and affiliates to spearhead projects that accelerate the deployment and commercialization of energy-efficient lighting and daylighting technologies.

Ace Parking has hired Joe LoGiudice as Director of Operations for its San Diego Commercial Division. He will oversee 70 downtown parking operations and direct a team of 25 parking managers. He brings to the company more than 15 years of parking management experience in multiple large West Coast markets. 

Allpro Parking has opened operations at seven new locations in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, OH, as of March 1, including its first locations in downtown Cleveland. This is the company’s largest single expansion in Ohio since starting business with Hamilton County in August 2008.  Allpro also started operations at the new Warburton Garage in Yonkers, NY, which is its first location in the Hudson Valley.

Carl Walker Inc. was recently awarded a planning and design contract with the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics (UIHC) to replace its existing 660-space parking structure with a new, four-level underground parking structure. Working as a consultant to project architect Heery International, the firm will be responsible for reconfiguring patient/visitor parking access and providing structural engineering and functional design services. Also, Carl Walker Inc. has relocated Vice President Rob McConnell to its Charlotte, NC, office. He brings 20 years of parking structure design experience to the Southeast US.

Serco has been awarded a contract to provide end-to-end, on-street parking enforcement services for the West London Alliance, a partnership among Ealing, Hounslow and Brent borough councils. The five-year contract, the first collaborative parking service venture in the UK, is said to be valued at £30m. With it, the company enters parking enforcement for the first time. It will supervise civilian enforcement officers, electronic payment and software management, and have responsibility for broader back-office functions

Blue Corp. has hired Mike Roark as Regional Sales Manager for Western North America, overseeing relationships with rep firms and dealers in that vast territory. He has more than 20 years in the security and technology sector, with particular expertise in sales management, data, telecommunications, CCTV, access control, surveillance and networks.  

Amano McGann Inc. was recently awarded a contract to install an advanced parking access and revenue control system for the 23,000-space, 62-lane public and employee parking facilities at Kansas City (MO) International Airport (KCI). The contract includes the company’s AMG equipment, iParcProfessional web-based facility management software and an integrated Frequent Parker Loyalty program. The project is part of a  massive KCI modernization effort designed to improve customer service, increase throughput, and reduce administrative costs through automation.  

ZipPark has announced its new v13 software package, which has many changes and new features. The first change? The version numbers no longer have the current year in them. V2012.8 was the company’s last version using the old numbering scheme. Why the change? Quite simply, it says, the first segment of the version number is used to indicate the "Major Release" number, and a major release is determined by the extent of the differences from the last version, not in which year it was released. 

Crossroads for Kids has announced that Jeffrey Karp, President and Co-Founder of Laz Parking, has joined its Board of Directors. The nonprofit organization offers summer camp, year-round leadership, and college access programming for at-risk youth in the Greater Boston area. 

Acuity Brands has been honored as Technology Brand Leader in the LED luminaire market by Architectural SSL magazine’s Product Innovation Awards (PIAs). It received PIAs for six of its indoor and outdoor LED lighting products, introduced in 2012. The company also won a Market Leadership Technology Brand Leader award “for its outstanding efforts in bringing a variety of quality solid-state lighting  fixtures ... to market,” said Jim Crockett, the magazine’s Editor-in-Chief. 

The University of California-Davis required a cutting-edge parking guidance system (PGS) that would allow drivers to quickly and easily locate available parking spaces for its medical center garage. TCS International deployed a PGS  that uses ultrasonic sensors above every parking space in the facility. The sensors communicate locally to a zone controller, which then communicates on an encrypted wireless mesh network to the central server. It provides a user interface and allows viewing of real-time parking availability, which is displayed on signage placed throughout the garage.  

 

Timothy Haahs & Associates noted that the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), the most influential media organization in the country, aired an hour-long feature on President/CEO Timothy Haahs, PE, AIA. The program aired in South Korea on Feb. 16, as part of a weekly documentary that showcases stories of Korean global leaders,  including their paths to success, personal stories and vision for the future. 

The Parking Company of America (PCA),  unveiled a new website (www.pca-star.com) in mid-March, said to be designed “with the parker in mind.” The company operates under the brand names of PCA in Columbus, Cincinnati, Fort Lauderdale and Atlanta, and Star Parking in Dallas and Indianapolis.

The Technology Association of Georgia (TAG), the state’s leading association dedicated to the promotion and economic advancement of its technology industry, has named Parkmobile as one of its Top 40 Innovative Technology Companies in Georgia. TAG recognized the honorees March 20 at the 2013 Georgia Technology Summit.  The Top 40 Awards recognize state-based technology companies for their innovation, financial impact, and efforts at spreading awareness of Georgia’s technology initiatives. 

Magnetic Autocontrol Group management has signed Bruce Pate as the new General Manager of Magnetic Automation Corp., its subsidiary company in Rockledge, FL. He is a graduated mechanical engineer (BEng), with broad business knowledge, the company says. With Robert Kempton, President of FAAC USA, Pate will continue and complete the merger process of the two FAAC-owned US subsidiaries in next few months.

CBRE Sutter Health has awarded Propark America its Sacramento, CA, hospital portfolio, including Sutter General, Sutter Memorial and Sutter Roseville.  Propark will be responsible for numerous garages, surface lots and valet points, as well as providing maintenance services for all three campuses. The company also recently took over parking operations for Hines Interests at 101 California in San Francisco, and for Transwestern at 1999 Broadway and 2099 Welton in Denver. In other news, Propark has promoted Tom Cooper to Regional Human Resources Manager for the western US.

Bemrose Mobile was scheduled to launch “a multimillion-pound scheme” at the Parkex Conference and Exhibition on April 16-18 at The NEC Birmingham. The UK company behind pay-by-phone cashless parking  and e-permit solutions is to introduce a system designed, it says, “to help councils nationwide.” Details were announced at the company’s stand (P150) at Parkex 2013, which is sponsored by the British Parking Association and considered to be Europe’s largest parking exhibition. 

 

Colorado Taking Money For Unpaid Parking Tickets From Tax Refunds. The state of Colorado may be holding back a chunk of resident’s tax refund money because of unpaid parking tickets. The state confirms it is trying to collect on debt from 20 years ago. If you were ticketed, the state wants to collect, and at stake is hundreds of millions of dollars. http://tinyurl.com/bmb2fhy

City Council members blast NYCHA's plan to quadruple tenant parking fees. Twenty-two officials sent a letter to Housing Authority Chairman John Rhea condemning the plan as ill-advised considering that the agency serves low-income residents.  New York City Housing Authority Chairman John Rhea has stressed the need to raise money to satisfy a $60 million annual shortfall. Twenty-two City Council members Wednesday blasted the Housing Authority’s plan to quadruple parking fees for public housing residents. http://tinyurl.com/bsob7jb

Santa Rosa may spend $172K to bring back parking meters. Four years after ripping out hundreds of parking meters downtown, Santa Rosa is considering putting them back in, this time with high-tech versions meant to be more user-friendly than the much-maligned pay stations. http://tinyurl.com/cl8f599

Finding a way to fix Beach parking. Virginia Beach is revitalizing its resort area. New apartment buildings and hotels are under construction. The city's gateway to the ocean, Laskin Road, gleams. A mega entertainment complex is in the works for the old Dome site. A new zoning code, adopted in July, has helped to make it all possible. But a key ingredient in the area's success remains missing: parking.  http://tinyurl.com/bsh66qh

Finding a fix for a broken parking system. Aashish Dalal was a man on a mission when he quit his consulting job in 2005. He wanted to fix what he thought was a broken system: finding a parking spot in a commercial garage. He initially joined forces with co-founder Jon Thornton to create a hardware company that would measure availability at garages using real-time sensors. http://tinyurl.com/bo88us2

With airport TRAX open, UTA allows some extended parking . Transit » Neither of the designated long-term lots are on the direct line to the airport, requiring a transfer. A week after its new airport TRAX line opened, the Utah Transit Authority announced Monday that it will now allow long-term parking for airline travelers at two parking lots where UTA already has been charging for parking. Neither is directly on the airport line. http://tinyurl.com/cz9jyaa

HUGE ‘GREEN’ PARKING LOT WILL REDUCE LAKE ST. CLAIR POLLUTION. FOR two decades, Macomb County officials wrestled with the pollution problems plaguing Lake St. Clair and have concluded that a major cause of the foul waters is the rainwater that runs off of streets and parking lots into the lake. http://tinyurl.com/bvwyqll

Austin launches new way to pay parking meters. - Parking around Austin just got a little easier because Wednesday the city launched EasyPark , a device that allows drivers to pay parking meters from the comfort of their car. http://tinyurl.com/choeq8a

Philadelphia Parking Authority On The Move. The Philadelphia Parking Authority is moving the end of April and it should be more convenient for city residents.  The PPA is moving into the old Lit Brothers Department Store at 7th and Market Streets in Center City. Deputy Executive Director, Richard Dickson says the services will remain the same. http://tinyurl.com/bmn8fww

Taking hunt for parking off the menu - Red Bank Borough Council approves expanding valet service for west side restaurants, mall. Patrons of restaurants on the borough’s west side won’t have to start their meal with an appetizer of circle-the-block-for-parking any more. The popular valet parking service for restaurant patrons is expanding to part of the west side, which Borough Council members approved on April 10. http://tinyurl.com/d7p4g3b

Parking around UC Berkeley campus just got harder to find. Good luck finding a place to park.That's the upshot of an ongoing building binge at UC Berkeley where parking lots are being turned into buildings as the school runs out of vacant land to work with. And there's no plan to create more spaces. With the permanent closure of two large lots and the two-year closure of a third, the university is eliminating 650 spots, or about 10 percent of its entire inventory of 6,000 spaces, said Seamus Wilmot, UC Berkeley parking director. That means more UC Berkeley faculty and staff will be competing with everyone else for street parking and spaces in city and private lots http://tinyurl.com/cwto5kl

Taking hunt for parking off the menu - Red Bank Borough Council approves expanding valet service for west side restaurants, mall. Patrons of restaurants on the borough’s west side won’t have to start their meal with an appetizer of circle-the-block-for-parking any more. The popular valet parking service for restaurant patrons is expanding to part of the west side, which Borough Council members approved on April 10. http://tinyurl.com/d7p4g3b

Smart Parking Meters Will End Free Rides And Fun. If you pull up to a parking meter and there is still time left, it's like a stranger left you a wonderful gift. A stranger that you'll never be able to thank. Well, some soulless folks are looking to end your free ride forever. http://tinyurl.com/cjqrhse

Report: Pedestrian Street Plazas, More Bike Parking Coming To Williamsburg.  Pedestrian plazas and expanded bike  parking are coming to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, according to a published report. Brooklyn Community Board 1 last week approved a plan from the city Department of Transportation to set up a pedestrian plaza on Brooklyn’s Broadway near Bedford Avenue, according to a report in the Brooklyn Paper. The plaza will include chairs, benches and potted plants, the newspaper reported. http://tinyurl.com/ctv3nzr

Days of free parking in Banff may be coming to an end. Resort town dealing with traffic congestion, lack of parking. BANFF — Paid parking is back on the discussion table in Banff in a bid to ease the tourist town’s parking crunch and traffic woes in the busy summer months and long weekends. http://tinyurl.com/cqmsy7f

Electric car drivers should get free parking and exemption from all tolls under 'green badge' scheme, think-tank claims. Drivers who buy electric cars should be given green badges providing free access to public car parks, toll roads and congestion charge zones, it has been suggested. The scheme would offer privileges in the same way as the blue badge scheme does for disabled motorists. Local councils would finance the scheme by imposing higher parking fees on people who continue to drive petrol or diesel engine cars. http://tinyurl.com/cvn85u2

Boston airport bracing for parking crunch. Official at Logan International Airport are offering discounts on off-site parking as they anticipate jammed garages for April vacation week. The Massachusetts Port Authority said the steep discounts on its Logan Express service aim to reduce airport trips during what’s traditionally the busiest parking week of the year. http://tinyurl.com/dyxxxgh

Old Coin Parking Meters Are Going Extinct. Coin-operated parking meters are going the way of the dodo bird and phone booths, as the City of Pittsburgh replaces them with fancy new parking machines. These solar-powered wonders allow you to pay with coins or a credit card, and promise efficiency and savings for the Parking Authority. http://tinyurl.com/btp6le5

Innovator: Sam Friedman's ParkMe App Finds You a Parking Spot. Sam Friedman, 28, recalls driving to a movie theater in Santa Monica, Calif., in the summer of 2007 to see Live Free or Die Hard, then spending a fruitless hour and a half looking for a parking space before giving up and going home. Drivers circling U.S. business districts in search of an empty metered space or a cheap garage account for 30 percent of urban traffic congestion, according to an IBM survey. After his movie no-go, Friedman decided to build an app that allows users to outsource the chore. http://tinyurl.com/cvx6ogm

Illegal parking hotline flooded with calls after traffic wardens return to the streets. Traffic wardens are back on the streets of Bridgend and the Vale of Glamorgan for the first time in three years, prompting a flood of calls to deal with illegal parking. http://tinyurl.com/bu4hazl