FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. - Tourists headed to Flagstaff for Memorial Day weekend will likely face limited parking downtown, but they can avoid citations if they are careful.
The city’s interim parking manager Karl Eberhard said Flagstaff is 400 to 600 spaces short on a regular basis.
“So certainly on the holiday weekends it’s even worse,” Eberhard said.
Spots that are enforced are usually only good for two hours.
“You get a ticket for not moving your car,” Eberhard said.
The City of Flagstaff hopes to solved the problem with a new parking system. Park Flag is scheduled to go live in August. Kiosks, an app and dollar-an-hour parking are all part of it, but not more spots, right away.
“The goal is to generate a revenue to build parking in the future, but also to manage the parking that we have now so that when people do come up to visit, they have a place to park,” Eberhard said.
Until Park Flag is in play, the city is using up its old parking supplies -- including tickets with inaccurate information.
As of March 1, the city took on a new parking citation fee schedule in which drivers paid an additional $50 if they didn’t contest or pay their $35 ticket within 15 days. Before March, the additional fee after 15 days was only $30; the $50 fee was tacked on 30 days after the citation date. However, the parking tickets being issued still list the original fee schedule.
Eberhard said those tickets will go out of circulation in August when another new fee schedule is put in place with the Park Flag system. That plan will give parking offenders a break on their first citation.