photo by: Eric Ayres

Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron speaks during a Rules Committee of Council meeting regarding the upcoming changes to downtown overtime parking enforcement program.

WHEELING — Officials in the city of Wheeling will have to adjust city codes to be in line with a new high-tech overtime parking enforcement program that is expected to begin as early as March.

The city is implementing a new electronic tire chalking method of monitoring parking in the downtown area where meters have been removed as part of the ongoing Downtown Streetscape Project.

“Parking meters were not put back in the Streetscape area,” Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron noted. “The goal there was to change the way that parking enforcement is conducted.”

While some parking meters remain in other areas of the city and even on some side streets in the downtown, the primary traffic arteries on Main and Market streets — as well as their connectors between 10th and 16th streets — will not have meters for the newly redesigned on-street parking spaces.

Visitors will be able to park for free in these spots for a limited amount of time, but the new program will require them to move their vehicles after that time has expired or face getting a ticket.

“We are proposing that the overtime ticket be increased as part of the ordinance from $10 to $20,” Herron noted.

Members of the Rules Committee of Wheeling City Council met this month with other city officials to discuss the looming changes. In the weeks ahead, council is expected to consider approval of an ordinance to adjust the city code regarding overtime parking to reflect the new method of monitoring and ticketing where meters are no longer present.

With electronic tire chalking, parking enforcement personnel will drive vehicles outfitted with the new technology in the designated areas. Cameras will read each vehicle’s license plate and the location of at least one valve stem, and will record the location, time and date, providing notifications when the time limits have passed.

The technology will detect if a vehicle is parked in a two-hour parking zone or a 15-minute parking zone. It zeroes in on a vehicle’s valve stem location, similar to chalking a tire to see if it is moved from that same location after time has expired.

“This council purchased two EV (electric) vehicles, as well as the software and hardware for the license plate reader or the electronic tire chalking process,” Herron said. “The ordinances that were set up were for meters in areas where there were meters. So in order to enforce parking regulations, city council needs to change the ordinance to take into account the areas where there are no meters.”

Certain areas of the downtown had meters that had a maximum time of 15 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour or — for the vast majority — two hours.

“What we’re proposing is — whatever it is now is whatever it will be going forward,” Herron said. “The software in the cars will be programmed to be able to pick that up, and our meter attendants will be trained to recognize what areas are for 15 minutes or two-hour, etc. We will also have signage up.”

Some businesses — such as those in front of a restaurant — may need two-hour parking for customers, while others — such as coffee shops — may need parking areas in front of their business turning over at a faster pace.

Officials noted that areas of town where meters are still present will remain for the time being. The meters can be paid for timed parking with coins or by using the ParkMobile app. The new meterless parking program with electronically enforced tire chalking may be expanded to other areas of town in the future, but for now, areas like Centre Market will still rely on meters.

“Centre Market definitely wants meters for turnover,” Herron said. “Depending on how things go with this, there is the ability for council to expand and eliminate meters there, too. But what’s happening now — particularly on Main Street where the Streetscape is completed — we’re finding cars that are parking there all day. The purpose of a meter is not necessarily to generate revenue — it’s to generate turnover. And we think this system of electronic tire chalking will provide free parking — which I think is going to be valuable for the downtown business district — and also strict enforcement so we do create that turnover without meters.”

Wheeling City Solicitor Rose Humway-Warmuth has been working on a draft ordinance that is expected to be finalized after a meeting of key players in the program. The staff from the legal department, the city IT department, the municipal court, the police department and the meter readers are having a training session on the new system early next month.

“We’ll have a lot more information in regard to how the recordings work and how that will be practical in our daily experience,” Humway-Warmuth said. “The ordinance will be updated and modified after that meeting.

Under the new system, tickets are expected to be issued by hand, not mailed like how electronic fees are presented on — for example — areas of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

“The goal here is to try to go online and have the ordinances in place by March 15,” Herron said. “If it needs to be April 1, it can be. It’s just that we are getting complaints about people parking on Main Street all day.”

Training needs to take place with the new software, and the system needs to be linked with the state license bureau, officials said. City leaders said they would like for Wheeling’s fees to be in line with overtime parking fines in other similarly sized municipalities in West Virginia.

“This is an exciting program because I think it reaches a happy medium in that there is going to be free parking in downtown Wheeling, and hopefully it will not be taken advantage of,” Herron said. “I think we are going to have the technology to make sure that does not happen.

“City council has really stepped up and has funded everything we’ve asked for for this program. I think it’s going to be very successful and hopefully a win-win situation for everyone.”