The city of Little Rock has again delayed implementation of enforcement of the “pay and display” machines for parking along eight blocks in the River Market neighborhood. Machines aren’t properly printing the tickets drivers must display.
Tickets for unpaid parking were supposed to begin today. Weather willing, the city hopes to have the problem corrected by tomorrow afternoon. If so, Wednesday would be one more day of warning tickets, with ticketing enforcement to begin Thursday. But that’s still tenative, enforcement director Jack Wrenn said.
This means that — today and tomorrow — parking is free without time limit on the eight blocks of Clinton, River Market and Sherman where the machines are to be used. The two-hour parking signs have been removed so, for now, it’s a free zone.
The city news release:
The Pay and Display parking units installed in the River Market are continuing to be calibrated. Currently the units are not printing payment receipts; these receipts are to be displayed on the dashboard of the car as proof of payment.
Until the receipts are printing properly, the City of Little Rock’s parking enforcement staff will not be issuing tickets in the River Market area.
“The manufacturer is sending a team to assess the problem and fix it,” said Parking Enforcement Administrator Jack Wrenn. “In the meantime the Pay and Display units have been turned off to ensure that the public does not put money Since receipts cannot be displayed, Parking Enforcement is not issuing citations in the River Market for failure to display a receipt.
According to Wrenn, “The issue should be fixed by the middle of this week. Once it is corrected Parking Enforcement will take another day to simply issue warning citations to alert everyone that enforcement is about to resume.”
The system was installed earlier this month. As part of the transition from free two hour parking to this new system only warning tickets have thus far been issued. No one has been fined for failing to display a receipt.
During this transition from 2 hour parking to Pay and Display in the River Market, parking meter violations in other areas of Little Rock still will be enforced.