"How Does This Thing Work?" Now That's Progress, Particularly For Visitors From New Jersey!

Typically, when I test our new $10,000 parking kiosks to make sure they are paying for themselves, one of two things happens.  Via the digital screen, after a few taps on keys, they either respond that they are ready to take money for parking spaces or there is a printer error keeping them from taking money.  On Thursday, I had to add another result to the list:  No response at all.   No surprise there!

Two days ago, tapping the keys (numbers, letters) did not light up the screen of the $10,000 solar-"powered" parking kiosk near the intersection of Warren & Park Place, the only kiosk for the entire 700 block of Warren. *  In other words, the new kiosk (new to the sidewalk at least -- it was delivered to the city in early February of 2025 and took well over one year to be installed) was completely without power. Unresponsive.  Also known as DEAD.  Kaput.  Worthless.  No help.  Time to call the company located in Indiana (or is it India?) and have them come take a look!  And tell them to bring a loaner kiosk in case this one has to go back to the factory!

That same kiosk was still DEAD and UNRESPONSIVE yesterday, ready to do nothing for the weekend full of visitors arriving by automobile.

A few hours later, I had another wonderful made-for-HUDseen moment.  While walking on the south side of the 400 block of Warren, I came across our friendly parking enforcer, Bill (with a name like that, how could he not be friendly?), as he was in the process of issuing a so-called "meter violation" ticket to a parked car.  I stopped to say hi to Bill and catch up with him (it turns out he's a fan of HUDseen).  Directly adjacent to the car about to be ticketed, 8 or 9 feet above the sidewalk, was a pair of scannable paid parking signs on a city-owned streetlamp pole.  There was also a working $10,000 parking kiosk (I checked) just a few steps away adjacent to the next parking space. It's entirely possible that the driver of that car had paid for their space but allowed their allotted time to lapse.  Something tells me that was not the case.  Bill told me that anyone paying for a space with the parking app receives a text reminder 15 minutes before their time is set to expire.

As Bill and I were talking, a couple approached him and the husband asked if he could "help" them.  Bill told them to wait a moment, put his freshly printed $10 "meter violation" ticket on the windshield of the car, and returned to the sidewalk to answer questions.

Digression:  I think it would be insightful (or just amusing) to know how many times per day parking enforcers are approached by the public with questions about how to pay for their parking space and whether that number decreases with time.  Given how many visitors to the city park in downtown Hudson for the first time every day, particularly on weekends, I guarantee you that the number of confused and uninformed drivers trying to pay for an on-street or parking lot parking space will never decrease.  When I was a parking enforcer for a minute several years ago, no one ever -- EVER -- approached me and asked me how they were supposed to pay for their parking space or how to put time on a parking meter next to their parked car!  Even a blind driver could figure it out!  How many confused and clueless visitors parking downtown these days don't get help from an enforcer and do get ticketed?  Does HPD care?

The husband told Bill that he had parked at the top of the block, pointing to the other side of the street toward 5th, but couldn't figure out if he had to pay for his space.  He literally had no idea what was expected of him.  His wife then said (and I'm not kidding), "We're from New Jersey," as if that might help Bill with his explanation. (Please talk slowly?) I about fell over.  Bill told them that they could pay by scanning a sign on a lamp pole or by using the kiosk they were all standing next to.  The husband then said, "How does this thing work?"  Amen! (Keep in mind that the three just happened to converge at a kiosk -- they could have just as easily found themselves several hundred feet away from the nearest one, possibly on the other side of the street, and with no indication where one might be located or if kiosks even existed at all!  Or they could just as easily have converged at the dead kiosk a few blocks to the east.  In fact, the couple parked at least 150 feet from the kiosk they were standing in front of!  On the other side of the f'ng street!)  Bill began explaining the mechanics of the kiosk and I took my picture.  Then I walked east and did my best not to get in the way of the many sidewalk diners out front of Little Rico's.  Not much room for pedestrians on the sidewalk, not many available parking spaces in the street.  Another sunny Friday in Hudson.

*  Yes, the Hudson Police Department is fine with one kiosk per block along Warren (except for the first block) and in the 700 block of Columbia, not two kiosks per block with one on each side. At a recent meeting of the so-called SAFETY Committee, I asked Police Chief Mishanda Franklin if she was expecting people to cross the street to get to a kiosk if there wasn't one on the side they had parked on.  Her explanation was, essentially, "No. They have options to pay on both sides."   You can tell that our law enforcement department has thought through this new paid parking system really well, can't you?   More important, perhaps, is what, if anything, downtown paid parking has to do with safety or law enforcement.  I'm still trying to figure that one out.