Walking The Line: A Chat With Traverse City's Parking Meter Enforcers

No, they aren’t hiding in the bushes. No, they didn’t get a notification from across town that your meter expired. No, they aren’t behind a corner waiting to pounce as you run into the store for “just a few minutes.”

And no, they really aren’t out to ruin your day with that dreaded little yellow envelope. They’re just doing their job.

“Either there’s time on the meter or there’s not,” longtime Traverse City parking ambassador (as they’re called) Marianne Posler tells The Ticker. “It’s pretty black and white.”

Posler, who has been with the city for 12 years, is one of three ambassadors that tend to the more than 2,000 metered/kiosk spaces throughout the city and handle other parking-related matters. They write about 27,000 tickets a year that generate about $300,000 in revenue, City Parking and Mobility Director Nicole VanNess says.

No one likes to get a parking ticket, though these parking ambassadors insist the vast majority of their interactions with ticketed individuals are uneventful. People might grumble or wisecrack a bit, but that’s about it.

“For the most part, people don't want to be confrontational,” four-year veteran Abbey Riling tells The Ticker. “I would say 85 percent of the interactions that we have are fairly low-key.”

But in this job, they have to be prepared for the worst. It doesn’t happen often, but they’ve been called unspeakable names (yes, even that four-letter bombshell reserved for women) and made to feel terrible by people who fly off the handle at a simple parking ticket.

“Some days are harder than others, for sure,” Riling says. “We're going to have negative interactions at times, and people get escalated. Your stress hormones kick in whether you want them to or not, and at times it can be hard to shake.”

Riling says the key is to remain cool and collected, even if the other person isn’t.

“If they bring anger, I can kind of diffuse that just by being calm and explaining things matter-of-factly, giving them options as far as appeal, things like that,” she says. “And then, if it escalates beyond that, wishing them a nice day and removing myself from the situation.”

The ambassadors carry a small printer that prints out each citation, and once that’s done, the goose is cooked. The ticket is already in the system, and they can’t take it back even if they want to. But they frequently exercise discretion prior to that point, they say, with countless thousands of would-be tickets not issued over the years due to various circumstances. 

Hustling isn’t required to tap into this discretion, but it can’t hurt.

“I always tell people I appreciate a runner,” Riling says. “I’ve had people scream at me from down the street – ‘Wait, no!’ –  and start running, and I’m like…that was amazing."

Ambassadors strongly refute any and all suggestions of trying to tend meters, trap people into tickets or issue a certain number of tickets. There’s no formal or informal quota they have to hit. Walk the line, write a ticket (or not), rinse and repeat.

“If it says one minute, I just keep on walking,” Posler says. “I don’t have time for that.”

Ultimately, the good of this job far outweighs the bad, ambassadors say. Walking up to eight miles a day is nice exercise, for instance, and there’s something to be said for being outside in fresh air instead of cooped up in an office.

Then there’s the fact that they get to be – as their title suggests – important and valued sources of information for people visiting downtown. As such, they take pride in staying up on the best things to do, see, eat and drink.

“What I enjoy the most is when someone asks for a good place to eat, and I say ‘We could do this all day. Let’s break it down. What are you in the mood for?’” Ambassador Tom Bakke says. “And people just dig it.”

The $300,000 in revenue generated by parking tickets is just a fraction of the roughly $4 million in revenue generated for parking each year, VanNess said. Metered spaces themselves generate about $2 million, with the balance generated by permits and revenue from the parking decks. VanNess says all revenue is directed right back into parking operations and maintenance, which include things like lighting, snow removal, staffing and much more.

While some people insist parking in places like downtown should be free to support businesses there, VanNess says free parking in a place that busy would have a net negative effect because there would be nothing to force turnover. Downtown employees or others would likely camp out in those spots for many hours (even days) at a time, she says, greatly reducing overall availability.

“Parking turnover is required in order to support the businesses in the downtown core.” she tells The Ticker. “A lot of what we do is just trying to make sure those rock star spaces are actually available.”

As for the meters that once had those buttons for a free 15 minutes? VanNess says the bulk of them (the last remain at the Governmental Center) were replaced a few years back by new, upgraded meters with credit card capabilities. The new designs do not have a single button that would easily facilitate the free 15 minutes, she says.

Photo: (L-R) Posler, Bakke and Riling.