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

By the way … nice sign.

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 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.

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.

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.

[UrbanReviewSTL --- I agree that as a society we are too auto dependent, myself included.  That said, given the width of Grand, the scale of the buildings, and human density, if you were to remove the on-street parking you'd pretty much kill the street.  You'd have four lanes of traffic speeding through and it would otherwise look vacant.  

Instead, I would reduce the four lanes to two and make sure the signal timing was improved to keep the flow of cars although at no more than 25-30mph.  Bike lanes are basically useless in my book, at least how we do them in the US.   Conflicts between cyclists and motorists happen at intersections and our US bike lanes just disappear where help is needed most.  But that is a huge debate.  Like I said, two travel lanes and perhaps a wide outside bike/parking lane.  Then widen the sidewalks with the left over room so that we can add bike parking and other amenities to the pedestrian zone.] 

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.

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 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.

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.

[UrbanReviewSTL --- We need parking for all two wheel vehicles; bikes, scooters and motorcycles.  The bike parking can easily be accomodated on the sidewalks.  I am big advocate on-street parking for cars.  Without the cars there a place with our population density (quite low for a city) looks vacant.  Vacant areas do not attract more people.  I've at outside at Mangia plenty of times and didn't mind the occassional car coming & going.  I'll take that over a smoker next to me any day.]