CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – The new paperless downtown parking garage payment system has raised serious concerns among City Councilors as evidenced by a nearly one-hour discussion at the first meeting of 2026.

Gone are the days of driving into the Market or Water Street garages and pulling a ticket at the entry gate, then entering that ticket into a payment kiosk at the doors or into a kiosk at the gate where one exits.

The new system, which began Dec. 16, requires a driver just drive through the entry gate as the arm raises.

The driver then scans a QR code on the wall before they enter the stairway or elevator toward Market on Main streets.

That code takes the operator to a web-based app where they set up an account in which they enter their license plate number, credit card information, and phone number.

The information is managed by a company called Metropolis, which bought out the company with whom the city signed a parking management contract in 2023, SP-Plus.

City Economic Development Director Chris Engle, in addressing the parking management history of the downtown parking situation, pointed out Metropolis “is tech-focused”.

The homepage of the Metropolis website, in fact, says, “Metropolis transforms parking from static infrastructure into responsive, AI-powered environments.”

The system now in the downtown garages using AI technology and license plate scanning to time and bill for the individual parking transaction.

A driver upon exiting need only drive through the gate when the arm comes up, and they’ll be texted a receipt to their phone.

Engel said it’s not known how long the information related to a particular transaction is stored, but it is kept in the system for a period of time afterward in case there is a refund need.

Councilor Michael Payne is incredulous at the license plate scanning, “I think it’s a bad system.”

He said, “I think after the community had such concerns about automatic license plates readers, Flock, Peregrine, to implement this on the part of city government is hypocrisy and I think hard to defend.”

Payne expressed a two-fold concern about the data one needs to submit to a company who is acquiring contracts and not earning them.

“I think it’s a system that just makes people’s lives marginally worse, sacrifices their data and doesn’t provide them a benefit and just advances private equity profit,” Payne noted.

“The business model is very new and explicit of establishing a nationwide monopoly in parking management, using AI to mass surveil customers and then monetizing it.”

In fact, Engel shared SP-Plus with whom the city signed the 2023 contract had once been long-established parking management company Standard Parking before it was consolidated into the larger company that Metropolis purchased in 2024.

Engel said the new technologically advanced system does have some advantages.

“It’s essentially a modernization effort to remedy the equipment we had, which was nearing the end of its useful life and was not terribly efficient in a number of scenarios, particularly when you had large crowds trying to exit at one time,” Engel said.

“You may recall last spring there were maybe two or three instances early in the event season, maybe in April or May, in which there were some equipment failures that caused very long exit times and I know you heard about that because there were emails from folks who felt it was unacceptable… and it was.”

In addition, Engel said, “It was nearing the end of its useful life being in place since late 2018 and 2019.”

“These are thermal imaging printers that have a five-to-seven years useful life as we understand it, to begin with,” Engel continued.

“The company that provided also was not great on the service front and has a few contracts in this area, so getting their attention on things has always been a challenge.”

He said there was one cash machine at the elevator of the Market Street garage that had been out for some six months prior to the transition Dec. 16, and that was because of an equipment piece that is no longer being made.

“So they basically kind of have to harvest parts from other older machines and try and make them work and were just unable to do it, so we were left in the position where we can’t offer the service suggested for a long period of time because of the equipment failure.”

Engel said the trend across the country is moving toward more technological parking solutions that are more software than hardware oriented.

The upfront costs, Engel explained, are also much cheaper in the technological approach where upfront cost of the equipment installed in 2018 or 2019 was around $350,000, and the installation of the new system implemented in December had a $85,000 price tag.

The city, in addition, is paying a $45,000 a year management fee to Metropolis in addition to reimbursing any costs the company may incur in parking garage maintenance.

Councilor Lloyd Snook said he’s less concerned about the license plate reader, “But I am paranoid about where the data is stored and who has access to the data as it’s stored.”

“If we assume the only purpose for which data will ever be used is to try to figure out how to charge somebody for parking, number one I think that’s hopelessly naive, and number two, certainly in the current political realities I would have no confidence whatsoever.”

However, he acknowledged this issue exists anywhere we use a credit card in that those transactions can be tracked even apart from license plate data.

Engel did say there are other options apart from this system to be implemented for using the garages in the future.

City Manager Sam Sanders said the city is working to get a kiosk in place that will process payment similar “to what people are more accustomed to”.

“I am fine with the new parking system with the new options we will be providing,” Mayor Juandiego Wade responded in an email inquiry by Cville Right Now.

New Councilor Jen Fleisher in an email wrote, “ I trust City staff can ultimately deliver by improving outreach, creating inclusive systems that work for cash and card users, and providing alternatives that reduce the risks associated with ALPR technology and data capture – while still meeting our parking needs.”

She said, “it seems from (the) presentation there is a limited ability to change course right now with Metropolis as our current vendor.”

Engel also acknowledged the rollout of this new system could have been better.

The Dec. 16 change wasn’t noted on the city website and sent to media until Dec. 12, and city leaders have received feedback from residents not aware the garage situations were changing.

“I think it is regrettable that, and Chris and I both acknowledge that, we both should have probably thought about this a little bit more and made sure that we thought about when to roll it out as well as how to roll it out,” Sanders said at the meeting.

“My leadership team knows that public engagement has been a bigger conversation and bigger priority for me as we’re working to even revamp our communications and public engagement team so that we insure we don’t miss steps,” Sanders continued.

“I don’t know that going through the perfect rollout would have changed where we are today, so just acknowledging that for where it is because I don’t tend to shy away from ‘if it’s uncomfortable, it’s just a part of the process for me’ “, Sanders said.

He said they continue to try and make this process easier and identify options “so that no one is forced to do anything they don’t want to do”.