Drivers Say Prepaid, Calculator-Sized Portable Parking Meters Are Just the Ticket

No change is a welcome change for some drivers in this Washington suburb. They’re leaving their coins home and opting for the Parkulator, a portable parking meter.

Instead of feeding the meter, a driver hangs the electronic Parkulator from the car’s windshield. The device, which resembles a pocket calculator, counts off time like a conventional meter.

“I wish I had stock in this little sucker. It’s going to change parking forever,” said Arlington County Treasurer Francis X. O’Leary Jr.

Arlington County was the first to test the device, in late 1989, and decided last summer to make it a permanent option.

The Parkulator also is being used in Ft. Lauderdale and Tampa, Fla., in Boulder, Colo., Latrobe, Pa., Louisville, Ky., Morgantown, W. Va., Davis, Calif., and Syracuse, N.Y.

About 700 Parkulators, which sell for $5 each in $25, $50 and $100 lots, have been sold in Arlington, and O’Leary estimates that between 5% and 10% of drivers are using them.

A Parkulator won’t find a parking spot, but it can save time and money. There is no rummaging around for change. The driver pays only for time actually used, and there is less likelihood of getting a ticket for underfeeding the meter.

“If you get someplace, put $2 in the meter and go to your appointment to find it’s canceled, you’re out of luck. With the Parkulator, you just turn the thing off when you get back in the car,” O’Leary said.

Clyde Short, a legislative consultant who often makes three or four stops a day at office buildings, said he gets a “psychic reward” from not driving away with time left on the meter.

Parkulators are programmed to local parking rates. Users punch in the appropriate parking zone and the amount of time to be deducted. A personal identification code helps protect against theft.

Police check up on Parkulators just as they do conventional meters. When the programmed time on the Parkulator has elapsed, its screen starts flashing.

Arlington is promoting the Parkulator because it reduces the expense of collecting and counting the 60 tons of coins dropped into its 3,300 meters each year, O’Leary said.

“We get our money up front. We can go ahead and invest it instead of collecting it over months in nickels and dimes,” said Deputy Treasurer Donald R. Eager. Last year, $1.7 million was collected from parking meters.

The county also hopes to woo commuters away from parking lots and garages.