High-Tech Parking Meters Raise Flag of Confusion

A parking meter is a simple thing.

Pull into a spot. Put a quarter into the slot. Twist the handle. Hope you make it back before the red EXPIRED flag pops up.

So what happens when parking meters go high-tech?

Ask people in St. Petersburg, where city officials hoping to capitalize on the advent of major league baseball spent $1.5 million to remove the meters and install newfangled computerized “pay stations.”

People couldn’t figure out how the blasted system worked.

“I just don’t know how to use it,” grumbled Michael Williams. “I’d rather pay for a garage.”

That’s because the fancy pay stations, which were ordered from France and are popular in Europe, work like this:

* Pull into a parking spot.

* Note the number painted at the corner.

* Find the proper parking pay station, usually located at the end of the block in the direction of Tropicana Field, the home of baseball’s new Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

* Use the keypad to punch in your spot number.

* Consult the chart to see how much the spot costs. The rate varies depending upon whether it’s a game day and how far the spot is from the stadium.

* Insert cash or credit card to pay for the spot, which can cost up to $10 for an afternoon.

Adding to the confusion: There is no way to tell how much time you have remaining on the spot. And some people, pulling in without seeing a meter, didn’t realize they had to pay at all and ended up with a $22.50 parking ticket.

The confusion wasn’t just coming from Tampa Bay’s many elderly people or the technologically challenged who can’t program a VCR.

The backlash was too much for the City Council. Its members changed the pay plans five times over the course of the Devil Rays’ first season before deciding in September to let people park for free for two hours while the council tries to straighten out the mess.

“There was a lot of confusion. The public rejected them,” said Mayor David Fischer.

The Devil Rays, meanwhile, are angry about the free parking, complaining that they can’t make any money off paid lots. They have accused the city of breaking its 30-year lease with the team.

The City Council is scheduled to meet again in November and solve this for good.

The mayor said the city might find a way to make the pay stations easier to use--say, by making the charts simpler. Or it might just sell the pay stations to another city. The posts for the old meters are still in place, and the meters themselves in storage.

“We could go slap them back down,” Fischer said.

Of course, not everyone thought the pay stations were such a big deal. Kathy Bender used one once. No problem.

“I just read the directions,” she said.