The process of replacing old coin-based parking meters in Downtown Long Beach with over 1,000 “smart ones” to meet meter needs officially began on Monday.
The new smart parking meters will accept coins, debit and credit cards. The organization projects the overall installation will take a four-week period by installing approximately 350 to 400 per week.
“As a world class city with major tourism,” Seyron Foo, the management assistant for the City Manager’s office, said, “it’s going to be a huge convenience for our visitors and our residents to use their credit cards.”
A parking meter study in August 2014 that implemented pilot programs to test multi-space meters versus on-street parking concluded that drivers prefer single-space smart meters.
The project began in Downtown Long Beach and will lead into Belmont Shore and the Pike over the course of the next four weeks.
Foo said that the cost for the new meters would be about $1 million. He said that $750,465 of the budget is allocated for the meters and $441,995 for the sensors. These prices include sales tax that the city is paying.
The sensors are the newest addition to the meters on top of the acceptance of debit and credit cards. The sensors are supposed to gather data on how each parking space is used. It tracks occupancy times to show if the city needs to adjust its enforcement hours in order to accommodate longer stays, Foo said.
“During a community outreach in Belmont Shore, the city learned that residents use beyond two hours,” Foo said. “The sensor data will be able to tell [the city] eventually the average hour [an individual] uses a parking meter.”
The city offered pamphlets, held meetings and conducted online surveys to educate Long Beach residents on what to expect from the new meters, Foo said.
“The city… has done an excellent job reaching out to the community [about the meters],” Foo said.
One of the pamphlets the city produced provides the public with a how-to on using the new features. One of the main new features the pamphlet outlines is the First Five Free button, a green button users can push to clock a free five minute stay at the meter.
“The First Five Free program will help serve our local businesses by allowing patrons who need to make quick pick-ups and drop-offs the opportunity to do so without having to pay for parking,” Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal said in a press release on April 20.
Freshman mechanical engineering major Darcy Vincent said that she once spent about 30 minutes circling a block in Downtown Long Beach looking for a parking space.
“It’ll be good for those looking to park really quick,” Vincent said. “It seems like a system that will help with the parking congestion.”
The City of Long Beach Public Works website states that new rates will be applied and take immediate effect once a new smart parking meter is installed. The new rates range from $0.75 to $2 per hour, depending on the location. Parking rates will remain the same at old parking meters.
The use of credit or debit cards would charge a transaction fee, but not to the user’s card, Foo said. He said that the city would cover the transaction charges.
“It seems like a pretty good plan,” Vincent said. “Long Beach seems really crowded and there’s always a lot of visitors downtown.”
By installing these new meters, Long Beach joins other cities in Southern California, such as Santa Monica.