South Bend officials are considering some changes to parking in the downtown area after a recent study found that 48 percent of parking tickets never get paid.

The study found that 78 percent of free off-street parking spaces are occupied during the noon hour, and about 6 percent of the vehicles parked in those spaces violated the posted time limits of one to two hours, WNDU reported.

In fact, vehicles are parked in free spaces stay an average of 2 ½ hours.

“How long is a lunch meeting? Is an hour realistic? We want to make sure that our policies reflect the patterns and are very supportive of the business downtown but are also very responsible to the taxpayers,” Scott Ford, director of South Bend’s Community Investment Department, told WNDU.

The study made some suggestions for fixing the problems, which includes directing some patrons to the three parking garages, where parking is free for the first two hours a vehicle is parked there. 

Read more about the downtown South Bend parking study in the full story from WNDU.