Thomas MacMillan Photo
Travers and Bombero
Heading downtown? You may soon be able to leave your quarters at home, now that aldermen paved the way for credit card meters Thursday night.
The Board of Aldermen’s Finance Committee voted unanimously to support a plan for the city to bond for $550,000 to install almost 300 credit card-accepting meters downtown. A staffer from the budget office told aldermen that the meters will immediately start bringing in more money than the annual debt service on the bond.
The matter now heads to the full board for final approval.
Interim traffic czar Jim Travers appeared at Thursday evening’s City Hall committee meeting with a demonstration meter. The new devices are essentially new “heads” for the existing meters. A number of the solar-powered machines — which still take coins — have already been installed on Broadway and Chapel streets downtown, as part of a trial run.
The electronic credit-card meters offer a number of advantages over conventional mechanical meters, Travers said. The meters communicate wirelessly with the traffic department, and send out alerts when their coin bins are nearly full, or when they are broken. They need to be emptied less often, which means the city can add new meters to currently un-metered spots without having to hire more staff, Travers said.
What’s more, the meters take in more money. People are more likely to pay for a full two hours of parking, because they don’t have to find or use coins. In February, despite a lot of snowfall, the newly converted credit-card meters saw a 30 percent increase in revenue from when they accepted only coins.
The industry standard is a 50 percent increase in revenue with the installation of the new meters, said Becky Bombero, a budget staffer. But even with a conservative 25 percent increase, the meters will more than pay for themselves immediately, she said.
The new meters would also open the door to “dynamic parking,” a system of variable parking fees and time limits throughout the day, according to demand. The new meters can easily be programmed to accommodate hourly variations in price.
Hill Alderman Jorge Perez asked how the meters stand up in bad weather.
“We’ve had no issues at all with any of the meters,” Travers said. Meanwhile, the older Parcxmart meters, which allow parkers to pay with a special card, are breaking down more often, he said. Workers are spending more and more time working on repairs for the old meters, rather than simply maintenance, Bombero said.
For the first three years, any repairs on the new meters are paid for by the company that makes them, Travers said. The new meters are anticipated to have a 10-year lifespan, which is comparable to mechanical meters, Travers said.
With the credit-card meters, parking fees will hit city coffers faster. Existing Parcxmart meters, which are installed throughout the city and accepts special payment cards, have to be manually “emptied” with a different special card. The data is then downloaded and sent to the Parcxmart company as a bill. That can take up to ten days, Travers said. Credit card payments with the new meters will be in city accounts withing three days, Travers said.
“We’ll get the money quicker, which is worth something right there,” said Beaver Hills Alderman Carl Goldfield.
Aldermen approved the bond proposal unanimously. Lawmakers included language requiring that it be a 5‑year bond, rather than 10 or 20, so that the city is not stuck paying for the meters years after they have perhaps broken down or become obsolete.
It's disappointing that slightly deeper digging wasn't done either by the aldermen or the writer. This article, like the initial article on the topic fails to mention that:
1) The meters (at least those on Chapel) accept a MINIMUM $1 payment, 50 min.; WELL OF COURSE revenue went up if it's impossible to grab just 10 or 20 min. of parking, which is often all that's needed.
1a) This means that the meters become a de facto alternative to medium-/longish term (2-hr) garage parking; this is good if you don't want to use the garages, but it also encourages longer-term parking and may put a squeeze on (i.e., make it harder to) finding parking for shorter visits, e.g., popping in for a quick lunch, pick up an order, etc. Consider this in light of Elicker's concern that "people...are unable to find a parking spot so they can run into the Hall of Records and pay a parking ticket."
2) These meters do NOT accept the Elm City ID/Parcxmart card. The original article on these stated that they do, but they don't. This may not be a concern (clearly the Alders saw advantages to getting the $ quicker), but then again, how much money will be lost on the unused/sunk cost for setting up the -Xmart meters around the city.
Did the Aldermen consider either/any of these possibilities?
Look, I think paying by CC is a good idea, but let's not pretend that the increase in revenue isn't at least partly due to forcing a $1 minimum.