L.A. installs credit card-friendly parking meters

Don’t have $4 in quarters to feed the meter? Not a problem.

Parking meters in Los Angeles are getting a makeover. About 10,000 coin-operated meters are being replaced with their more high-tech cousins, machines that can be paid using credit and debit cards.

Department of Transportation officials estimate that the new meters, which will be installed throughout the city in the most highly trafficked areas, will bring in an additional $1 million to $1.5 million in revenue each year.

The new meters don’t break as often as their coin-operated counterparts, and more people will opt to park and pay with the convenience of pulling out their credit cards, said a spokesperson for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Parking rates in the city range from $1 to $4 an hour. About 500 coin-and-charge meters have already been installed in the city and brought in extra revenue, officials said.

Villaraigosa is unveiling the new meters in Los Feliz, where about 200 new meters will be installed.

-- My-Thuan Tran

Comments

[pmg]

These will probably malfunction and overcharge. I can't count the number of times I've swiped my card at a parking meter/kiosk elsewhere and been double/triple charged because the machine doesn't work properly.

[King of His Castle]

Just another excuse to raise the price of parking and make it harder for businesses to survive in the city of Los Angeles.

[stewart]

what does this say about the value of parking revenue, who wants nickles and dimes when gvt can bang credit cards right now!

[Mattias]

About time. We've had those in Sweden for the last 5 years.

[LAGuy]

My friends and I have permanently changed our shopping and eating habits because of the city's draconian new parking rules. No free parking on Sundays! Meters in effect until 8PM! (There goes dinner at that nice little bistro!) One hour maximum parking! (Who can do anything, even eat in a restaurant, in an hour?) No overnight parking in some high density areas. (Guess my girlfriend can't spend the night!) Insane increases in parking tickets (So much for protecting the average joe.)

Word to the government: We are not New York. Not until you create some sort of viable public transportation system that goes everywhere and is open all night.

We are no longer citizens. We are the city's personal ATM machines.

[TAM]

$ 4.00 an hour is too much to pay to park on city streets. The tax payers have already paid much time for these streets. I hope they will install these meters in South & East LA maybe that will stop people from putting 3 or more cars on the street to sell with the same cell number. Furthermore, these cars are in only in South& East LA. Parking enforcement no longer enforces the parking laws in these are areas. It is all about getting money from the middle class.

[Chris G]

These new meters are an underhanded way for the city to yield greater revenue from parking spaces. Aside from the other factors already mentioned such as new time limits, pay parking on Sunday, and extended parking hours, these electronic meters now prohibit a person piggy-backing off the excess time a previous person left behind. Now, instead of showing up to a meter that may have had 30 minutes left on the clock, that extra time is forefitted and given to the city and you have to start a new clock. Sneaky!

[kuruc]

take away the FREE cars from the city"officials" and have them use their own cars. that's the correct thing to do in our present circumstances.

[Greg Allen]

While I agree with Chris G that this is underhanded, it should be pointed out that piggy-backing on someone else's leftover time on the meter has always been illegal, just not easily enforceable until now.

The real crime here is the extended hours of enforcement.

[blf2115]

How much will these meters cost? Where did the money come from to pay for them? How long will it take to recoup the cost? Whose cousin owns the parking meter company? Sounds like one more fiscally irresponsible deal to me. LA Times should investigate.

[Jose A]

@TAM: At least for ELA, the issue is that its it's part of the city and so this does not apply to it.

Additionally, I think this is great. The meters near work are 4 dollars for all day parking, and they are always broken, or fail as you put money into them. It would be nice to just get out, and pay 4 dollars. Carrying around 16 quarters to park for a day is crazy.

[Marcotico]

This is great news. I hate not having change for a meter. Of course this would even better when they start sending some portion of the revenue back to the local areas like they do in Pasadena. Hopefully they also raise the rates and encourage more people to bike and take the bus. This is a city after all. If you want to drive everywhere move to Orange County.

[SouthBay local]

Considering that very few people actually pay off their credit balances every month, how much money in interest will flow to Visa and Mastercard? Probably millions every month- you can bet that those companies are funding this initiative.

[Geena Rodriguez]

Villaraigosa: FAILURE

[steve roche]

IF these are individual card-readers at each meter... there will be problems.

Has anyone in the city council, or the mayor ever heard of CARD SKIMMING?

My bank account was wiped out last month because of a fake 'card slot'
placed over the real slot, at an ATM machine. Result: it reads your card info, including your name, bank account, etc, and sends it back
to a person with a receiver or cellphone, they log it and later they make a duplicate card
with your number on it. Then they go use it, and rack up charges. (if it's an ATM, they pull all the cash out that they can). Then you must cancel the card and dispute the charges.
I'm sure the organized crime groups in Romania and Thailand (who manufacture
exact look-alike ATM machine fronts) are just waiting to install little card skimmers on half the meters downtown. Do you think this won't happen?

I'm spending a month in a small Mexican town; about 40 American tourists were affected by this last month. Our bank accounts were suddenly empty.
ATM machines had fake card-reader slots stuck over the original slots. This is a town which gets written up in the LATimes travel section at least every 3 months.

(also, this happened in Woodland Hills at a Chase Bank)

Google "ATM card skimming"

The only reasonable solution is a kiosk, which is manned, where you buy parking time, and put the ticket on your dash. (of course you'll have to pay his salary...)

PLEASE don't use your card in these meters! You will be wiped out in no time.

It is a poor decision for the city to be doing this. Perhaps it is a Diebold contract or something.

steve roche

[Men in Gray]

Ha-ha-ha!!!!
For bicycles? Cowboys Horses?
Who would pay for it @ the rate of 20% of unemployment??
Simply stupid!