Modern parking meters unveiled

San Diego is catching up, at least partly, with a worldwide trend this week by installing modern parking meters that accept credit and debit cards.

Nearly all of the city’s 4,700 coin-only meters will be replaced by January with sleek looking “smart” meters, city officials said. Installation began last weekend in downtown’s Gaslamp Quarter.

The goal is making it more convenient to shop and dine in city neighborhoods that have meters, making those business districts more competitive with Fashion Valley and other malls with large parking lots.

“Coin meters have been a tremendous hassle for drivers and businesses,” said City Council President Todd Gloria, explaining that merchants have grown tired of making change for frantic people. “I get lots of complaints because my constituents travel to other communities and see this more advanced technology.”

Gloria conceded though that San Diego will remain behind many other cities that have installed meters that allow payment by smart phone and that alert drivers with text messages when their meter has nearly run out.

Some meters even refund money when someone parks for a shorter period than they paid for, and prevent freeloaders by wiping out any extra time left when a car leaves before the meter expires.

“We’re going from the 1950s to the mid-2000s, so hopefully we’ll be state of the art before too much longer,” said Gloria, who held a Thursday morning press conference on Fifth Avenue to unveil the new meters.

Gloria said the city considered leaping to the most modern system in a single move, but chose to attack the problem incrementally to speed things up.

“Everyone has a credit card and now we accept those,” he said, noting it would have taken longer to install more advanced meters. “When everyone has a smart phone, you’ll be able to pay using those.”

People parking on Fifth Avenue Thursday morning praised the new devices, which are silver and black with easy-to-use colored buttons.

“They’re really convenient,” said Elvin Berrios, who had scraped together some change before noticing he could use a credit card.

Ron Howell said he plans to seek the modern meters out during the three-month installation phase because they’re so superior to the old-fashioned coin devices.

“Nobody has change too much any more,” he said. “You can pay at McDonald’s with a card, so meters should have that too.”

Most of the city’s meters are in downtown, Hillcrest, Little Italy, Bankers Hill and Mission Hills, but more neighborhoods will become candidates as the city becomes more densely populated.

The new meters will help the city compile better revenue statistics that could allow redeployment of meters in more strategic locations.

Cities install meters, which are often unpopular, to prevent cars from monopolizing coveted parking spots in key locations — not to make money or annoy people.

The city’s $8.1 million, five-year contract covers the new devices, operational expenses and more than $300,000 in transaction fees to Bank of America. The meters are made by IPS Group, Inc., a Sorrento Valley company.

City officials said additional revenue from the new meters is expected to at least cover their costs. The meters should generate more money because the additional payment options will prompt people to use them more.

The new devices aren’t the first smart meters in San Diego.

Before this wave of installation, the city placed 50 smart meters in Hillcrest and downtown five years ago as part of a pilot project that’s been popular with merchants and shoppers.

In addition to that, San Diego has about 1,000 spaces in 132 multi-space pay stations where drivers can use credit and debit cards.

The world’s first installed parking meter was in Oklahoma City on July 16, 1935, according to history.com.