INDIANAPOLIS — More parking tickets could soon be issued for Indianapolis residents in and around downtown.
It's a move the Indianapolis City-County Council says they hope will increase pedestrian safety across the city.
The goal? To deter people from parking in many places including bike lanes and in front of fire hydrants.
The City-County Council approved the proposal that gives ParkIndy a chance to have more revenue by ticketing at all locations around the city, not just at metered spots.
DPW hopes more tickets will be written to violators parking in a number of non-metered locations, like in front of fire hydrants and in bike lanes.
The approved proposal allows ParkIndy to get a portion of revenue from all tickets written.
Previously, ParkIndy only got a cut of the profit from citations written at metered spots.
It's something the city says made the number of citations issues much lower than it could have been.
It's the reason many cyclists across Indianapolis say has created a major issues in bike lanes across the city.
"It's not a great time to be a pedestrian or a cyclist in Indianapolis," Brianna Susnak said.
Susnak bikes just about everywhere she goes, she says being a pedestrian around Indianapolis is dangerous.
Often times she comes across cars parked in bike lanes, which forces her to go into oncoming traffic or try and jump on the sidewalks. Neither option is a great option, she says.
"I try to be as defensive as possible but it shouldn't be that way," Susnak said.
The move by council comes at a time where pedestrian activists have been vocal about the problems they're having getting around the city.
"I can't control what everybody else does but i have three fingers pointing back at me , so it's about more of what I can do because I don't want to be a victim of my circumstance," Laura Jordan said.
Jordan bikes more than two miles to work daily, and said almost daily she comes across a car parked in a bike lane.
"I can't necessarily jump up on the curb to get out of the way," Jordan said. "Yeah now I wear a helmet."
The X account, formerly known as Twitter, Indy Pedestrian Crisis, frequently posts photos of cars parked in bike lanes.
"It's continuing to see it get worse," Eric Holt, who runs the account, said.
Holt says people send him photos daily of the issue.
The city hopes the proposal will start to mitigate this issue.
"It's a step in the right direction we've needed more enforcement on our bike lanes for a long time," Holt said.
While Holt is optimistic, he says a lot of the chance is relying on ParkIndy to actually write the tickets.
"I think people having to pay prices for parking tickets will make them reconsider creating those problems in the first place," D'Andre Rose said.
DPW numbers show last year 10,700 parking tickets were issued. That includes those written by ParkIndy and IMPD.
Less than 20% of the tickets written were by ParkIndy.
- 527 bike lane tickets
- 1,151 fire hydrant tickets
- 2,129 total tickets of the 10,700 were written by ParkIndy
Some cyclists who spoke to WRTV say they aren't sure anything will ever solve the issue, but add this is a step in the right direction.
The revenue from the tickets foes toward a number of things, section 621-241 of Indianapolis Municipal Code breaks them down as:
- For the payment of the cost of repairing and maintaining any of the public ways, curbs, and sidewalks where the parking meters are in use;
- For the payment of the cost of traffic signal devices used in the city;
- For the payment of the cost of acquiring, by lease or purchase, suitable land for off street parking facilities;
- For payment of the cost of improving and maintaining land for parking purposes and purchasing, installing, and maintaining parking meters on that land; and
- For any other uses that may be permitted under IC 36-9-12-4.
All of the city's proceeds related to the operations of the parking meters are kept in a special fund called, "parking meter fund."
It is set up in a budget that is approved by city-county council, and is under the control of the public works.
DPW says the the revenue collected via tickets form ParkIndy is split between the city and ParkIndy.
For the first $730,000 (this number adjusts annually for inflation) collected each. month, ParkIndy gets 70% and the city gets 30%.
Once $720k is exceeded, the city gets 60% and ParkIndy gets 40% of everything over the first tier.
