Editor's note: This article has been updated to provide more clarity on Vert AI and parking specifications.
During Bryan City Council’s June 9 meeting, the council approved the use of artificial intelligence to help monitor parking in Historic Downtown Bryan for incoming timed parking spots.
What you need to know
Since 2023, the city of Bryan has been taking steps to enforce parking limits in the downtown area with different monitoring methods. According to agenda material, the intention of timed parking is to “improve storefront parking turnover, support small business activity, preserve free public parking, and create a more balanced parking management system in historic Downtown Bryan.”
The city has done rounds of testing before the implementation, and its choice was to go with automation for spotting the infractions, then letting code enforcement staff handle giving out the tickets. The city chose San Francisco-based artificial intelligence parking monitoring system Vert AI for automation.
Code enforcement will use Vert AI to spot infractions, then issue tickets with a ticketing platform.
In an email, the city of Bryan told Community Impact, "It is the same software used by the police department, but in this use case, the code enforcement officers themselves will be handling the ticketing."
Zooming in
The city’s pilot program will include all 226 spaces along the five blocks of Main Street, between 23rd and 28th streets. This includes storefront and center aisle spaces and excludes handicap spaces, as clarified by the city.
New signage will be made to show drivers the designation, which will be for a maximum of two hours of parking for vehicles.
Council members brought up concerns about how it will affect tourists visiting downtown, along with how it could impact the local economy. Council member Marca Ewers-Shurtleff said businesses have been negatively affected by a growing number of office workers taking spots throughout downtown.
“The growth of office space has been great for downtown, but one of the collateral consequences was that the vendors were seeing their spaces being taken up in front of their restaurants or shops from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.,” she said. “It has had a negative impact on our vendors or patrons just wanting to get coffee.”
Council member Paul Torres said he was concerned about locals and visitors from out of town not being able to spend a sufficient amount of time to shop and enjoy eating downtown. However, Deputy City Manager Joey Dunn said he felt confident the signage will communicate what visitors will need to know.
“We feel pretty good making sure that it’s clear to visitors where they can park all day or where it’s very clearly marked that you can’t do that,” Dunn said. “There’s over 2,500 parking spots in a very reasonable distance.”
What’s next
The council voted unanimously to approve the ordinance effective immediately. This is the first phase of the ordinance, and the council is expecting regular updates on its progress.
