A two-week reprieve on parking meter fees came to an end Monday in Durango with the unveiling of 1,010 new meters that accept credit cards and/or prepaid cards.
The switch drew jeers and cheers from residents and tourists.
Durango resident Becky Baker, who parked her 4Runner in the west 100 block of Eighth Street, said it’s nice to have the option to pay by credit card.
“I’m pretty good about keeping coins, but I love the idea (of paying with a credit card) if I don’t have them,” she said.
But Durango resident Mary Jane Ward, who parked her Honda CR-V next to Baker, said nothing on the new meters indicates how much time is being bought for a nickel, dime or quarter. It seems like a waste of money to equip individual meters with credit-card technology instead of installing kiosks on every block that allow drivers to pay in a centralized location, she said.
“I think they’re awful,” Ward said. “There was nothing wrong with the old ones.”
While installing new meters, the city seized the opportunity to increase meter fees.
It used to cost 60 cents per hour to park on Main Avenue. Now it costs $1 per hour, said Roy Petersen, the city’s director of general services. Meters on side streets had a variety of rates, but now they cost a flat 75 cents per hour, he said.
The city installed 365 credit-card meters and 645 “smart-card” meters, which accept coins and prepaid cards, Petersen said. The credit-card meters cost $475 apiece, and the smart-card meters cost $195, he said.
Smart-card meters were installed in locations that receive less parking traffic.
Credit-card meters also accept smart cards. They were installed on Main Avenue from the 500 block to 11th Street, and also on side streets between Narrow Gauge Avenue and the alley between Main Avenue and East Second Avenue.
The smart-card meters were installed everywhere else.
“As the public embraces the ability to use a credit card, we’ll eventually expand that credit-card zone,” Petersen said.
Monday’s unveiling went smoothly, with one exception, Petersen said. Too many people wanted to swap out their cash key for a smart card, he said, and the city has only one machine to program the new cards. It’s located at the Durango Transit Center.
“We’re struggling to keep up with that workload,” he said. “We’ve got a backlog of eight to 10 people at the window. We just can’t program them fast enough for the demand.”
Within the next 45 days, the city plans to activate a smartphone application that will allow drivers to pay using their phone, Petersen said. The application will notify drivers 15 minutes before their meter is set to expire, giving them the option to pay more money to add time.
The credit-card meters are solar powered. The smart-card meters have batteries.
Downtown parking was free from Dec. 14 through Sunday while the new meters were being installed. It proved to be an interesting social experiment for businesses and city officials.
Business owners reported mixed results, with some saying free parking created a “fiasco,” Petersen said. Others said it may have helped sales.
Petersen said store employees took up most of the downtown parking spots on Main Avenue. As proof, he said most spaces were filled by 8:30 a.m., before most stores were open, and the car park at the Transit Center was “basically empty.”
As for early complaints that drivers don’t know how much time they’re buying with coins, Petersen said the city is working to put stickers on all meters.
The city decided to stick with individual meters instead of installing kiosks, because they were similar in cost and people seem to prefer that ability, he said.
“You have to assign every space and number every space,” Petersen said. “It didn’t improve any clutter or anything. Rather than being able to pay right at their car, they had to walk a half block back.
“Other cities seem to be going away from that,” he added. “Cities that have success with it, that’s how they initiated their parking program.”
Still to come, the city plans to implement a license plate-recognition system that would replace hang tag permits for drivers who use city lots and allow city employees to drive the rows to make sure permits are paid.
It also would allow the city to drive up and down Main Avenue to identify vehicles that have been parked in one spot for long periods of time. The city could use that information to notify employers if their employees are taking up spaces that might otherwise be used for customers, he said, recognizing it wouldn’t be a popular use of technology.
“That’s not something we intend to use it for right off the bat, but if we find that a certain number of downtown employees are parking during the eight hours of prime time customer use, we may look at that,” Petersen said.
The city also is increasing the number of 10-hour meters on the north end of East Second Avenue, which will provide more spaces for downtown employees who want to use metered spaces.
Amy Nolan of Corpus Christi, Texas, on Monday parked her Chevy Silverado in the 700 block of Main Avenue. She paid with a credit card.
“It was easy,” she said. “It sure is a lot easier than digging for change. I wasn’t too worried about the price.”
shane@durangoherald.com
