Baton Rouge parking meter saga is close to the end?

For a decade City administrations have been wrestling with the parking meter situation in downtown Baton Rouge. Mayor Holden worked on a plan, as early as 2012 per TV reports. He finally made progress in 2014.

5/23/14 updated 7/12/16, from the Advocate,

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New parking meters that allow people to pay for spots with debit or credit cards could be coming to downtown Baton Rouge at the end of the year with the possibility that parking rates could rise.

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And the traffic engineers says;

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Ingolf Partenheimer, chief traffic engineer for the city-parish, said the city is evaluating bids for the meters. Right now, a review is being done to see how many meters the city-parish will need. “We’re hoping to set up a meeting this week or early next week to finalize who we will choose for this project,” Partenheimer said.

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LINK

The contract was finally awarded under the Holden administration, but apparently Broome didn’t like the deal, cancelled that one, and started working on her own deal.

May 4, 2018 Mayor Broome had taken office. From BR Proud

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City Director of Transportation and Drainage Fred Raiford said the city is hammering out the details for a plan to replace all of the downtown Baton Rouge meters. Raiford said he does not have a timeline yet for when those new meters will go in or how much it will cost the city. We will continue to update this developing story as more details become available.[/quote
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Feb. 21, 2019 from WBRZ from Mayor Broome’s top official , [quote]The increased revenue would pay for private companies to enforce and maintain the meters and garages. Gissel said bids for the new parking technology will go out in about 30 days and could be operational later this year.

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2/10/21 from WBRZ a vendor is chosen;

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BATON ROUGE – New parking meters are close to becoming a reality in downtown, which means drivers could soon say goodbye to their coin bags. The city, introducing the item at Wednesday’s metro council meeting, is looking to hire the company ‘FlowBird’ to provide and install new smart parking meters. The current meters only accept coins as payment, but the new ones will accept credit cards as well as payment through an app. The upgrade has been in the works for years now.

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Feb. 22, 2022 WBRZ reports,
[quote]BATON ROUGE - For quite a while now, replacing the downtown parking meters has been on the parish's to-do list. The project has gone out for bid three times and about a year ago the Metro Council approved the execution of a contract with Flowbird to provide parking equipment.

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The problem, Covid and supply chain issues!

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"Like the rest of the country, we're caught up in a supply chain issue," Chief Administrative Officer Darryl Gissel said. "We just can't get the equipment in right now."

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July 27, 2022 from WBRZ,

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BATON ROUGE - The City-Parish has finally signed a contract for a new street parking system in downtown Baton Rouge. The first shipment of parking kiosks have arrived and could be installed as soon as next month.

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LINK

And you thought the wheels of justice were slow.