Fancy parking meters

Those fancy new parking meters that are already used in West Hollywood are now coming to parts of L.A.:

City officials today unveiled the parking meter of the future, which takes the swipe of a credit card as well as small change. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was among the VIPs touting the Easy Park-Easy Pay machine, which was installed in a city parking lot at 11229 Magnolia Blvd. in North Hollywood. The Los Angeles Department of Transportation is replacing 6,000 of the city’s 40,000 meters with the multi-unit machines that allow motorists to use cash, credit card, debit card or their cellphones to pay for parking. LADOT officials unveiled the first unit in a city lot in North Hollywood. "Anyone in Los Angeles who has parked on the street or in public lots knows the frustration of broken meters, unwarranted parking tickets, and the stress of scraping for spare change to cover your trip to the local store," said Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. City engineers plan to replace 1,000 meters in city parking lots and another 5,000 along Los Angeles streets by next spring. If the new meters are deemed a success, LADOT will replace all of the city parking meters within two years. (CNS)

Comments

[Rafa C]

Has anyone paid for street metered parking this week? If you do, as I did, you are in for a major shock! On the 11500 block of Pico Bl in West L.A. and dropped in my quarter for an hours parking only to find out that I got 16 minutes. The City has changed the charge by 400% to a dollar an hour for parking and the public has not been notified. Search the Times and you will find no mention of the intended action. 213-972-8470 is the LADOT's number should you want to ask why this drastic increase in parking fees as I have.

[Kate]

Will they work better than the ones Beverly Hills put in on Beverly Dr. a few years ago? I'd go to park and find that entire banks of meters were out. Much more annoying than one or two in a block.