City of Grand Rapids wants to use drones to collect data on downtown parking

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Maxwell Dillivan with Mobile GR gave a presentation to the Grand Rapids City Commission Tuesday on a proposed three-week study, using drone technology to collect downtown parking data.

“It allows us to have an understanding of where and when we might have capacity issues when we have some constraints that allows us to have an understanding of where additional parking may or may not be needed,” Dillivan said.

However, residents like Synia Gant-Jordan and Vanessa Epps expressed concerns that privacy may be at risk.

“We do not want the program abused," Gant-Jordan said. "We have seen where programs like this kind of go astray. Dollars are allocated for the program, they collect the data, and they end up doing something different with it, the data sits on the shelf.”