NIAGARA FALLS — The city’s troubled system of downtown parking will get a fresh look before the start of next summer’s tourist season.

Economic Development Director Peter Kay is undertaking an internal review of the city’s parking lots, ramps and on-street parking to get a comprehensive look at how the facilities should be run in the future if there is new development.

“Right now, parking is not a problem because there’s not much here, but if we get even half-way developed, I think we will find that there will be a parking shortage,” Kay said. “I want to recognize the problems, if we can, before we get there.”

City leaders have debated for years how best to handle public parking facilities, including whether to add parking meters for street spaces and how to minimize the Rainbow Centre ramp’s drain on the city budget.

The most recent attempt to add digital parking meters that could photograph license plates on downtown streets ended last year when city leaders decided not to continue their use after a free trial run.

The meters worked only intermittently and the city was never able to use the cameras to ticket parking violators. Photo Violation Technologies, which makes the meters, removed the machines in October after the trial period ended.

Council Chairman Chris Robins said he doesn’t think city leaders will revisit the idea of adding parking meters to downtown streets in the near future, but they might consider buying new pay-and-display consoles for city parking lots on Third Street so that parking fees can be better monitored.

Those types of consoles would also allow the city to collect parking revenue at the lots over a 24-hour period. Revenue is currently only collected when the lots are staffed with an attendant, Robins said.

Kay said he and a planner from USA Niagara Development Corp. are now collecting data about city parking in the downtown area. He would like the city to then hire a consultant

with parking expertise to review the information and make recommendations about how best to operate public parking facilities.

“We need to analyze parking for the whole downtown,” Kay said.

The operation of the city’s public parking facilities is complicated by a patchwork of different contracts with agencies and businesses to use city parking spaces, Kay said. For example, patrons at the Crowne Plaza hotel get validated parking at the city lot at Third and Niagara streets.

One of the major parking concerns for city officials is the condition and operation of the Rainbow Centre parking ramp.

The cost of operating the five-story ramp is more than the revenue it brings in each year, and engineers hired by the city to review its condition have estimated that it will cost nearly $5 million to repair structural problems in the ramp and a skylight in the attached mall. The city has applied for a state grant for the work, but has not identified another source to pay for the project.

The ramp has continued to lose money in recent years despite debt payments that have dropped from about $600,000 to $110,000. Current debt on the ramp will be paid off in 2012.

City Controller Maria Brown said revenue at the ramp has increased significantly this year, partially because of several outdoor concerts in the neighborhood this summer.

The ramp already this year has brought in $193,260. The ramp brought in $216,207 during the entire year, Brown said. Revenue at the surface lot at Third and Niagara streets is down so far this year.

Brown said any project that will require the city to take on debt for the ramp will have to be carefully analyzed.

“It’s not self-sustaining through its use fees right now,” Brown said. “They need to look at the cost-benefit relationship. Is it something that the taxpayers want to invest in?”