Bloomington's Parking Meters Net $1 Million In Six-Month Period

Indianapolis officials were recently gloating that its privatization agreement for the city's parking meter assets netted the City $3 million in the most recent year. The City of Bloomington, which has a population less than one-tenth the size of Indianapolis, installed electronic parking meters in its downtown area last year to generate revenues to pay for sidewalk and street improvements. In its first six months of operation, the city-owned parking meters netted the City $1 million. Bloomington parking meter rates are $1 an hour compared to $1.50 an hour in downtown Indianapolis and Broad Ripple. If that rate of revenue generation persists, Bloomington will net about $2 million annually. If Indianapolis had simply installed its own electronic meters and not entered into the 50-year lease of the parking meter assets with ParkIndy, the City would be generating more than $6 million annually. The amount of revenues the City will give away to the private vendor over the life of the 50-year lease is staggering, but it's making a lot of money for the pay-to-play vendors and that's all that seems to matter with this administration.