BLOCK PARTY? "No Re-Parking" signs like this will soon be going up in downtown Eau Claire, but probably not right in the middle of the street.

In case you’ve missed the unsurprisingly negative reaction on local Facebook pages (and if so, what a pleasant life you must lead), a new parking rule is expected to go into force in August in downtown Eau Claire – just as soon as new signs arrive and are installed.

The ordinance, adopted by the Eau Claire City Council in June, prohibits re-parking on a single downtown block more than once per day. At first glance, so-called “block-face parking” may seem like a head-scratcher, but it’s really just a slight tweak to longstanding parking rules.

For years, the city has mandated a two-hour parking limit in Eau Claire’s downtown and business district areas, including North and South Barstow streets, West Grand Avenue, and Water Street. Whatever you were doing downtown – dining in a restaurant, watching a movie, getting your hair done – you had to move your car every two hours. In practice, this sometimes meant moving your car to a new spot just up the block or perhaps rolling only a few inches (maybe just far enough to ensure the chalk mark on the tire was no longer visible – not that we would ever do that, mind you).

The system’s GPS coordinates are only accurate within a block or so, which means it can’t differentiate whether your car is in exactly the same spot as it was earlier in the day, or whether it has been moved down the block or to the other side of the street.

Under the new rule, explains city Parking Administrator Todd Bohrer, drivers will have to move a little bit farther: They will be limited to parking on a particular block – not just a given spot – for just two hours per calendar day. In other words, instead of scooting forward to a vacant spot just down the block or whipping a U-turn and parking on the odd side of the street instead of the even side (or vice versa), drivers must move their vehicles to a new block down the street or around the corner.

The reason, Bohrer said, is because of new parking enforcement technology adopted earlier this year by the Eau Claire Police Department. Community service officers now cruise downtown in vehicles outfitted with special cameras and GPS equipment. The system can read each license plate and tag it with a time stamp and GPS coordinates. On the next trip around, if the system determines that a particular car is parked in the same place as it had been more than two hours earlier, a ticket is issued.

However, the system’s GPS coordinates are only accurate within a block or so, which means it can’t differentiate whether your car is in exactly the same spot as it was earlier in the day, or whether it has been moved down the block or to the other side of the street.

“If you just move across the street, it’s not going to know you’ve moved,” Bohrer explained.

As a result, an ordinance amendment requiring drivers to move their cars just a little bit farther was requested by the police department. Without it, the system could flag vehicles for tickets even if they had moved a little – but not enough for the GPS to recognize it. (Anyone who gets their directions from their cellphone can appreciate that GPS directions can be either amazingly accurate or frustratingly wrong.)

The bottom line is this: If you’re parking for more than two hours downtown, keep track of the time and move your vehicle to the next block or around the corner as necessary. Otherwise, you face a $15 ticket. Don’t want to tempt fate? There’s an easy solution: Park in either of the two downtown ramps (just 50 cents an hour) or in the Four Corners Lot (still cheap at $1 an hour).

Bohrer acknowledges the new rule will take some getting used to, and that not all downtown businesses or visitors are happy with the change. (See, for instance, those Facebook complaints.) When it comes to parking, he said, “It’s hard to help everyone at the same time.”

Need to park in downtown Eau Claire? Get tips on the City of Eau Claire’s parking website or check out this handy map from Visit Eau Claire.