If you've received a parking ticket in the past month in Old Town, you aren't alone.
After more than a year of relatively mild parking enforcement in Alexandria due to staffing challenges, city officials hired an outside company to handle parking enforcement, focused mainly on the King Street corridor, particularly near the waterfront. The outside company, Reimagined Parking, started work in late December.
In the first month of the pilot program, Reimagine Parking workers issued 4,000 parking citations — more than half of which were related to expired or unpaid parking meters.
If all violations were meter-related, and the typical metered parking violations at $40 each ($65 if it is not paid or disputed quickly), the city could get $160,000 in revenue per month at 4,000 tickets per month. Violations for incorrectly parking in a handicap-accessible spot and other violations may be more expensive fines.
Reimagined Parking operates hundreds of parking garages across the country, in addition to offering valet parking, shuttle services, event management and enforcement. The workers are supplementing parking enforcement staff from the city, enabling wider enforcement across the city.
"The parking enforcement pilot supplements the City’s existing parking enforcement officers and provides parking enforcement in Old Town, primarily along and around King Street. The contractors are authorized to issue citations only and do not handle issues of towing, vehicle relocation, or booting. The parking enforcement contractors wear identifiable reflective vests with parking enforcement written on them as can be seen in the photo below. Personnel officially began on Wednesday, December 27, 2023, and conduct parking enforcement during the hours of 7 a.m. - 11 p.m., Monday - Friday. Since the pilot began, more than 50 percent of the parking citations issued have been meter related. In January, 4,000 parking citations were issued through this pilot program," according to an Alexandria Traffic and Parking Board meeting document.
