Please Feed The Reg Parking Meters
Back in November 2006 I brought you a review of the two types of electronic parking meters being tested on South Grand – Pay-N-Display and Pay-Per-Space. At the end of February 2007, the study came to an end and regular meters returned.
I’ve not heard anything from the Treasurer’s Office on the outcome of the study. I still personally prefer the Pay-N-Display as it allows more cars in a given space depending upon the size of the car and the parking skill of the driver.
Overall, based on my own experience, the test went well. However, on several occassions I attempted to use the credit/debit function and it was not working. Lacking any change I simply left my car unpaid and managed to avoid tickets. However, had the machines accepted dollar bills I would have gladly paid. The lack of bill acceptance was a big drawback in my view.
Did you use the test meters? What was your experience?
I never got to try them (although I’ve used similar ones elsewhere). I wonder if your experience with limited enforcement combined with the initial capital cost doomed any test to failure, especially if it only ran for a few months.
Personally, I’d rather see strctly-enforced time restrictions (with higher fines) instead of nickel & dime meters of any sort. As citizens, we already “own” the streets and pay to maintain them. The stated goal of parking restrictions is to encourage turn-over and not to generate revenue. Realistically, strict enforcement will do both. What we have now appears to be neither. And eliminating meters woudl achieve your goal of cramming more vehicles into the same amount of space.
Heck, we’re a city that loves our patronage jobs. Parking enforcement people are (or should be) “revenue positive” (generate more revenue than they’re paid). As for accepting dollars, I’m guessing that the cost of arming against the risk of break-in offset any potential revenue that would be generated
I did, while visiting at the holidays, and they worked just fine. We have them all over Chicago now and they are a big improvement. More cars get parked in the same amount of space. But I can see the St. Louis ‘tude (“it’s new, it’s weird, it’s bad”) getting in the way of adoption of these.
By the way … nice sign.
^^ Margie is right on the money. Almost everyone I talked with hated it, but it seemed more like resistance to change. It took a little longer and some thinking was involved. How many people actually used it five or more times to get used to it.
I used it a couple of times and it was a little awkward, but I didn’t mind. The Pay and Display was weird because if you parked right in front of the restaurant you wanted to go to, you would have to walk down and back. I didn’t mind because, like Steve, I found more parking spaces available. With my Mini, many times I can fit in a space, but as defined by meters, I would be parking illegally.
I did not get a chance to try the credit/debit. Seems like just accepting bills would be enough to avoid the inconvenience of not having change.
Regarding the turnover, on the Freakanomics blog they mentioned someone that suggested free street parking, but you have to leave your headlights on or get a ticket.
The previous posters are right that there will always be a big problem with the St. Louisian attitude of “change is bad’. Even so I don’t see a problem with forcing change.
I had one experience using the new meters and overall I was satisfied. I did think that the user interface could have been better. Can’t we get Apple working on these things?
I used them several times while visiting my engineers. Yes, it was a bit of a hassle walking down to the machine, but there were definitely more available spaces, which offset the inconvenience.
I like the Freakanomics idea! Although I am among the clueless ones who would forget that my lights were on while I wandered from store to store ….
i used them a few times and didn’t really like them. i can see why the city would use them (no way i can get free time from some one else) but the fact is, i like getting free time, and i don’t like use plastic for a dollar or so. also people can’t park if they are not told were to. i think that more times then not, less parking was available because people park and leave and the spaces were not standard. thus the space between cars was awakward and sometimes wasted. i just want to know who paid for this little test, or rather what it cost.
I have to admit that I used the new meters. I can’t say that I found them overly friendly or too hard to use. It was an inconvience to walk to and fro though, I know it doesn’t sound like much, but hey, it was rainy and cold when I had that experience.
To me these meters are an example of poor design with imaginary benefits. Who cares if other cities use them? It is like the poet Gary Snyder says “Most of philosophy is people trying to convince you that the cage they were tricked into entering is the right one†That’s not exactly how he said it, but you get the idea.
I admit perhaps squeezing in an additional car along the street might have some value, but still the whole system is so consumer unfriendly that I’m not sure the whole exercise was worthwhile.
Nor do St. Louisians think change is bad, blaming the failure of the meters on the people is absurd. Between the poor design of the meters and a city government in which nothing significant can be accomplished in urban and transit planning, the attempt was doomed from the start.
A more worthy experiment would be to make bike riding easier. As a recent post by Steve on this blog noted, bike racks are relatively inexpensive when compared to the development of a new site. If that is expanded into a full blown biking system, it could be done inexpensively (the cost of just one of those new meters would build more than a few of those bike racks). Certainly there is no money or vision or leadership or political will to build a decent mass transit system. However a city wide system of biking should be within the realm of possibility. Many of the elements are already in place. Additional dedicated paths, plentiful bike racks, new bike lanes and other new bike services should be financially feasibile. The thousands of dollars that the city would have found for new meters could be diverted to such a project, coupled with new rules for developers, it might actully help accomplish something useful for a change.
I live on South Grand and use the meters several times a week, usually when I am hauling things like laundry or groceries in and out of my apartment. If I leave the car for more than a few minutes, I park on the side streets, where it’s free.
I found the multi-bay meters a little inconvenient, especially when it was cold or rainy. I only park on Grand when I want the convenience of being a few steps from my front door, and I’d rather drop a nickel in a regular parking meter right next to my car and get on with my errands. I don’t see the advantage of more available spots, since I rarely have trouble parking within a block or two of my building, whether it’s right on Grand or on a side street. Again, it’s a small inconvenience when it’s cold or rainy, but overall I don’t mind a little extra walking.
Obviously another unsuccessful governmental strategy. Whether it’s the management of valet parking or metered parking, it seems that StL inevitably gets it wrong.
The narrowness of Grand in this area logically dictates road design and usage. The metered areas should be bike lanes. However, locals would have a fit if anything disrupts their auto-dependency, including “free” or modern metered parking options. The continuing strategy of subsidizing this dependency creates greater dependency. Parking should never be provided cheaply by government and ,if needed, would be provided by the benefitted business owners in the area.
^GM understands that the StL area could easily provide an inexpensive alternative to autos. Man’s greatest invention, the bike, remains underutilized. It is obviously needed but never discussed here as a viable alternative. Bike racks are rarer than responsible leadership. Gas has already reached $3.50 per gallon in California. At what price will sanity and logic prevail here? Not much hope when our leadership continues to design transportation systems (highways and MetroLink) that are expensive to build and maintain.
I don’t know why the meter system would accept debit cards without accepting bills — huge drawback, and one based on a strange assumption.
You want a novel idea? Take away the parking spots entirely.
Use this space and extend the sidewalk out that many feet towards the street.
Take a long hard look at any successful and vibrant streetlife and you’ll see wide sidewalks. Certain sidewalks in Europe are 50 feet or so.
Cafes can set up more outdoor tables and vendors can choose to display merchandise outdoors.
You’ll have more street life as people will have to walk farther to their destination and more people are apt to do some leisurely strolling without having to worry about narrowly dodging various obstacles along the sidewalk.
Certainly there is an area or street in some part of St Louis where this could be experimented.
I should have mentioned, the ones in Chicago take cash and CCs.
yeah, and other sidewalks in Europe are barely as wide as your shoulders (or ass, for us visiting Americans). The difference is, wide or narrow, there’s street parking almost EVERYWHERE, and it’s full. And then there’s bicycles and scooters all over the sidewalks, right along with the cafes, street vendors, metro entrances, etc. and TONS OF PEDESTRIANS.
A couple cities we visited last year even had public-use bicycles set up as part of the transit system. With one you purchased a token that would be ejected when you returned the bike to a stall, and other system was debit/transit card regulated, with I beleive a time-charge deducted from loaded balance on the card (if you didn’t own a pass).
There’s no way I’d endorse narrowing S. Grand to just 2 lanes, as this would only cause a bottleneck as it’s 4 lanes nearly the entire length. Look no further than the cluster-f!@#$ that is Lindbergh/”highway” 67 through Kirkwood.
However I WOULD restore 2 lanes to their former shared streetcar/traffic usage. For its entire length. We’ve already got perfect turn-around points at the water tower roundabout in the north and at Carondolet park in the south.
As to the subject of the meters – I liked them just fine, especially since I almost NEVER have loose change on me. I also like them for their easy ability to be set up for a motorcycle/scooter 6-space stall. And I too would often hear negative comments from folks while in getting my haircut, as other have noted all in the “it’s different and I hate it and I don’t have the 2 synapses needed to figure it out” variety. boo hoo.
I used them they were great – also the benefit of alot less street furniture “junk”. I think the benefit of not having bill changers is that Cool Hand Luke is not tempted to steal the meters! As many have been stolen in my neighborhood.
I would love to see wider sidewalks all the way down South Grand. The buildings on the block from Juniata to Connecticut are set back a few feet more from the street than the rest of GSG, and the sidewalk is huge, but terribly underused. Instead of altering the sidewalks all the way down Grand, perhaps this would be a good place for public bike and scooter parking? Or a bus stop? There’s plenty of room for a bike rack, benches or a bus shelter.
SMART PARKING: The use of our streets for the convenience of parking should be designed to serve everyone and not just those that are auto-dependent. Sitting at sidewalk cafes, I’d rather be watching over bikes then have car fumes in my coffee. When will we get this type of smart parking in the StL area?
Check out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLFqriNaqgI
Chicken and egg situation Steve as you have pointed out numerous times. NO where to park your bike then why ride it there? No one has suggested banning cars. Do you prefer drinking your coffee with or without car fumes? Few things worse than inhaling tailpipe fumes when the engine is started for the motorist to pull out of their parking spot. In the StL area we have an opportunity with all our space and free parking to make a constructive statement…it is high time that leadership is held accountable. We’ll spend thousands of dollars to experiment with meters but we won’t dare attempt to be fair and inclusive. We know a city is a good one, a liveable one, etc. when it cares for everyone (example: ADA compliant) and not just for cars.
I am open to answering parking questions. Heck I would like to be your parking go-to guy. Having spent 13 years in various management area of parking, including the Philadelphia International Airport, Lambert St. Louis, Salt Lake City Utah, Park City Utah, Phoenix AZ, believe it or not Iowa, and of course DT St. Louis.
I currently am the manufacturers rep for Secom International and Ohana Seeing Technology, which encompass parking and security product manaufacturing. I reside in St. Louis and will be housing my office/warehouse at the Old Globe Democrat building. I wanted to focus my midwest efforts in St. Louis, not Chicago, where my product is of course in higher demand, but mainly for my quality of life and family I choose this place to call home.
I dreamed as a kid being a part of the revitalization ( i am fairly sure I didn’t know that word then)of St. Louis, I loved DT over the burbs while growing up. I couldn’t wait to come down and be with my Dad when he would take me to his office at Anheuser Busch on saturdays. I was fascinated. That was the late seventies and early eighties and things were happening then much like in the last few years although differently. St. louis city had a vibe then, while I am sure I didn’t use that term then either. There was much on the street level in comparison to today, in the way of retail business. Sure things were old and not as polished as todays renovations, but it was neat as hell to a 10 year old me.
To shed some light on the meters, while I was not here to be a part of the investigative effort on these meters, I not only sell a version of these, I have been a part of installs all over the country with my equipment and others. An astute observation stated about the ability to handle cash was voiced as a security issue for the money inside, which is often a concern, as you not only have the money being put in, but the cash needed to dispense for change. So CC are not only less expensive for initial capital costs, but maintenance, and long term ownership as well. They are also less likely to experience slippage or stealing both internally and externally, as mentioned.
There are two versions that are offered for street enforcement of payment, Pay and Display as was the case in this study or Pay by Space. Those are pretty self explanatory, but there are variations of both adaptations to the environment of the install or in the features desired by the contracting entity.
The Pay By Space is actually the technology I like, although Pay and Display is the most prevalent. In a Pay By Space environment there are usually restrictions needed as a parking stall needs to be allocated not unlike it is today with individual meters. The only major variation to the Pay and Display to having an uncluttered environment such as in a Pay and Display setup but in a Pay By Space install is the use of license numbers for enforcement purposes. So like the machine you experienced, you would go up put in your license number and proceed with payment. The machines are on-line, so you would not be restricted to just the machine allocated for the section. You start to see why I like these, they are convenient for the transient parker for many reason stated here and otherwise, should there be an obstacle or machine failure just go to another. They are also hospitable to the enforcement officer as they can see payments coming in real-time to an alotted area. Making enforcement a breeze. Areas can be whatever the administration wants it to be, streets, neihborhoods. They can be personalized with graphics celebrating the area or they can look like the monolith they probably seem to most.
In addition they could be utilized to pay parking tickets and convenient functions like resedential permits, long term parking if allowed, it is more than a parking meter, Since there is a full function keyboard on the unit it is a communication device between the customer and the administators.
The advent of license entry also allows the enforcement of parking restrictions of zones to be fully utilized. So if a business owner, or workers are taking up spaces to the detriment of retail or other fucntions of the area, the license entry catches this and will not allow it based on the needs of that area. So simliar to your comments and good observations about valet parking, whole areas can be off limits to daily parkers and reserved for those in a transient need to come and go.
There is more, but I will reserve comment for questions asked.
Steve, feel free to call on me for any parking inquiries that you might have. I would love to answer them for you. If I can’t, I know people who can. Speaking of which I would like to able to do the same. I cannot believe I did not know about this most informative place. I have been reading for the last two plus hours non-stop. Steve you have done a fantastic job here, I am grateful to you for creating and sustaining it.