High-tech parking meters could keep track of change

The city’s Transportation Department recently issued a report that shouldn’t shock anyone. It said, in short, that the city’s 40,000 parking meters are on life support and need to be replaced ASAP.

Among the interesting statistics in the report were that revenue from meters is down about $1.6 million in the last two years -- largely due to theft -- and that the city has had to “re-key” 1,000 meters in the last three months because people keep breaking into them.

“New meter devices are urgently needed,” the report concluded, echoing the couple of hundred readers who have e-mailed this column over the last few months.

So what’s the plan?

The city’s transit folks want to begin replacing meters immediately. Some of the new meters will be the traditional kind -- you know, Darth Vader’s head on a pole. Others will be newfangled multi-space machines of a type to be determined.

Such devices have been in place in Europe for many years and are starting to pop up increasingly in the United States. Typically, they allow you to buy an allotment of time for cash or credit card and then print a receipt to place on the dash.

One attraction for the city is -- as you might have guessed -- security. At present, and this is kind of hard to believe, the city does not have a way to be sure the amount of money put into a meter is the same as the amount taken out and brought downtown, where it is counted.

Are there any parking technology companies out there that want to help the city?

Does Godzilla have bad breath?

This column wandered into a Los Angeles City Council Transportation Committee meeting at City Hall earlier this month at which the meters were being discussed. About 90% of the crowd was lobbyists for parking meter firms, causing this column to scribble in its notebook, “to the city trough they come.”

The Transportation Department is trying to expedite getting a few thousand new meters by doing something called “piggybacking.” This allows officials to pick a meter contractor based on another government agency’s selection process -- and thereby avoid the long open-bid process.

This, not surprisingly, has some in the lobbying community in a tizzy because bidders want a fully open competition from the get-go. Ultimately, the city is talking about replacing 40,000 meters, the kind of business opportunity that parking meter firms don’t see every day.

The council is slated to get its say in the matter this week, when it considers whether to approve the piggyback option. A go on piggybacking means the city could have new meters on the streets within four months.

In the meantime, our bucket of coins awaits.

Is it possible to solve the city’s housing crisis in 25 words or less?

Require each of Los Angeles’ 15 council districts to rezone two miles of commercial corridors for residential buildings no taller than four stories.

Only 23 words!

Whoa, Nellie! Where’d this idea come from?

A certain reporter who recently covered a council meeting about an expansion of the city’s rent control laws.

Most striking about the meeting was that people on both sides of the rent control issue agreed the city needs more housing and that boosting the supply might lessen the demand and therefore lower the price.

So, while talking to the Central City Assn.’s Veronica Perez Becker, this certain reporter blurted out the above idea. Becker, a vice president at the group, which represents downtown business interests, didn’t immediately gag or laugh.

Of course, the idea is not remotely original. Plenty of cities have allowed housing to be built on major commercial arteries. Pasadena, for example, has been doing this on Colorado Boulevard the last few years.

Consider Lincoln Boulevard on the Westside. Is it really that great the way it is, lined with a bunch of fast-food joints and Lube-N-Shop-type franchises? Or might it look better with new apartments and condos, perhaps with many of those businesses on the ground floor?

Any opinion from the experts?

We called Jane Blumenfeld, a longtime city planner who pointed out that the city’s commercial zoning designation already permits residential buildings.

The problem, she said, is that the same zoning on the big commercial arteries generally only allows for small buildings. That’s one reason, for example, it’s easier to build a Lube-N-Shop or McDonald’s.

As for the idea, “I think there is something there that would work,” Blumenfeld said. “It would allow the city to build housing incrementally without changing the fabric of the neighborhoods.”

Of course, that’s just one opinion. We’ll be running our little plan by other experts in coming weeks, including the pols, and looking at such issues as the effect on traffic.

Your two cents would be appreciated too.

Which presidential candidate did Councilman Bill Rosendahl just endorse?

Dennis J. Kucinich, the Democrat whose campaign subsequently put out a release boasting that Rosendahl’s backing “is the first major endorsement by a prominent elected official in Southern California.”

Kucinich, a member of Congress from Ohio, has proposed a Department of Peace, supports universal healthcare, instant runoff voting, marijuana decriminalization, withdrawing from the North American Free Trade Agreement, and he opposes the death penalty. In other words, he’s a bit of a longshot.

“Of all the candidates, he’s more in keeping with my positions on the issues,” Rosendahl said. “His positions need to be discussed by the other candidates.”

In other presidential endorsement news, Councilwoman Wendy Greuel is backing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). Still to be decided -- or at least announced -- is whom Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will back. It will be interesting to see whether the mayor can parlay his endorsement into subway funding and/or a prime-time speech at the 2008 Democratic convention.

One intriguing connection: Ace Smith, one of the mayor’s prominent political consultants, is running Clinton’s campaign in California.

Why is it time to break out the Boxer-o-meter?

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) recently secured $25 million for Los Angeles River revitalization efforts in a water bill passed by the U.S. Senate. Attentive readers may recall that Boxer last year promised about $79 million toward the city’s river restoration. We’re helping the senator track her pledge with the Boxer-o-meter.

Boxer isn’t out of the woods yet. The bill still must be reconciled with the House version, which contains $20 million secured by Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-East Los Angeles). Then the final amount has to be placed in a future federal budget.

As for the river, this column’s favorite angler, Carmelo Gaeta, e-mailed a photo of a 22-inch carp he caught Thursday near Taylor Yards. He tossed it back, by the way.

And that reminds us of our promise to look into the prospect of reinventing the river as a wild trout stream. It is on our list of things to do, along with solving the housing crisis, fixing traffic, bird-dogging parking meters, relocating Dodger Stadium and building the Museum of the City of Angels.

It’s going to be a fun summer.

Next week: The pupusa that ate Los Angeles.

steve.hymon@latimes.com.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Boxer-o-meter

Last year, Sen. Barbara Boxer vowed to secure about $79 million in federal funds for L.A. River projects.

Amount raised so far

(In millions): $25

Source: Times reporting