The Wellesley Police Department this week presented a proposed change to the town’s parking enforcement and citation management system that the Select Board approved (see discussion starting at about 18 minutes into Wellesley Media recording of May 19 meeting).
Lt. Michael Lemenager made the case for consolidating services with Passport Parking and moving away from an intergovernmental agreement with Plymouth County Parking.
A brief mutual admiration society meeting ensued: Lemenager had good things to say about the Plymouth County system in use here since 2023, and Plymouth County Treasurer Tom O’Brien had nice things to say about the Wellesley Police Department. But in the end, Lemenager said Wellesley was looking to consolidate its systems to improve operations, adopt more modern technology, and sync up with planned amenities improvements in Wellesley Square.
The department had run into incompatibilities between systems that resulted in bogus tickets for some people who had in fact paid for parking.
Wellesley had previously employed Passport technology for parking enforcement and citation management after the vendor used by the town was acquired some years ago by Passport. Customer service fell off during that transition, so the town switched to the Plymouth County system in 2023. (Wellesley has continued to use Passport for one of its mobile parking platforms.)
Lemenager spoke of the Traffic & Parking Division already increasing parking enforcement efficiency in part thanks to Wellesley’s move to more online permitting. This has enabled parking enforcement personnel to spend less time monitoring parking lots and more time on the streets doing meter enforcement, watching for turnover in the commercial shopping districts and laggards at limited time spaces on side streets (yup, that party could be over for shoppers who currently avoid meters and overstay on side streets).
“Overall the goal here is to continue to modernize parking operations… and switching to the Passport platform I believe is going to give us the tools and resources we need to do that,” he said.
Asked about a difference in cost between the systems, Lemenager cited a $500 monthly fee, but no transition cost.
The process for paying for parking remains the same, though paying for tickets would now go through the Passport rather than Plymouth County system.
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This article left me wondering why we are allocating so many resources to cars in our downtown areas. What happened to walking or biking to the train. Also the downtown area is at a complete disadvantage to Linden Square where there is free parking. Let’s encourage micro mobility and walking instead of resource draining parking lots.
What a waste of town taxes paying police and a contract service to track nickels and dimes of revenue from tickets which are now a nuisance to residents… make free parking everywhere except at train stations encourage shall businesses