New Parking Meter Has a Brain but No Heart

This time, parking hogs, there will be witnesses. They will make sure you never again keep that parking spot for more than the two hours allotted by law. You also will lose that occasional freebie: the few measly minutes left on the meter by the last driver.

We all knew this day would come.

So-called smart parking meters are being installed over the next two weeks in the heavily trafficked Balboa Peninsula, taking most of the subterfuge--and hope--out of beach parking.

The modified meters will look as they always did--cold, metallic and merciless. But they will sport underground metal detectors and computer chips to determine when drivers enter and leave parking spots. Once a car is parked and the coins deposited, the meter will refuse any more feedings from, say, beach-goers who want to hang on to their spot for the day. The space must be vacated before the meter will accept any more coins.

Then, when the car does leave, comes the final blow. No matter how much time was left on the meter, the computer chip will reset it to zero.

“Meter feeding is a really big issue . . . that needs to be fixed,” said Dick Bartholet, a parking expert with the University of Nevada, Reno. “In a car culture, parking is very emotional. Especially when there is no parking.”

That describes Balboa in summertime. Cars clog spots all day to the point where Newport Beach officials worry that all-day beach-goers are hurting business by taking up the spots in front of shops without buying anything.

“Right now the only way to enforce parking turnover is using chalk on tires,” said Rich Edmonston, Newport Beach traffic engineer. The new meter makes that parking chore obsolete.

The idea of a smarter meter isn’t new. Other cities, including New York and Miami, long have fantasized about better meters; many cities have meters that can take payment from debit or credit cards.

Indeed, parking meters have become a matter of some public concern. In Silicon Valley last year, the city of Burlingame installed a wireless network to protect meters, enabling 50 parking meters to send alarms to police when tampering takes place. In 1997, a 63-year-old Cincinnati grandmother, also known as the “meter martyr,” made national news when she was arrested, and later fined, for putting coins in meters as a policeman ticketed cars.

It was only a matter of time before someone invented a better meter.

Shortly after the grandmother incident, a Westport, Conn., start-up entered the business. Officials of InnovaPark say their goal is nothing less than an improved society. The more equal sharing of spots will make parking more democratic, company owner Kirby Andrews said. It will, he added, “liberate” parking spots.

Andrews said he is talking to other coastal cities in Southern California.

The meters can be fooled if a motorist pulls out of a spot, waits a moment and then pops back in. But in Balboa, chances are another car will be there waiting. On the other hand, the next driver can’t pull in too fast. One remaining glitch in the machine is that if there isn’t a pause between cars, the meter won’t record the change and will refuse any coins.

Still, Newport Beach officials have decided to give the meters a try.

To start with, Newport Beach will allow 54 of its meters to be upgraded to smart meters for a 90-day test period. While it’s working on the meters, the city also will raise some parking rates to $1 an hour, from the current 50 cents.

Andrews is footing most of the cost for upgrading the new meters by agreeing to keep 75% of the increased parking revenues collected.

Motorists won’t be able to tell the new meters apart from other digital meters. Wire, which serves as a metal detector, will be installed under the asphalt and connected to the corresponding meter.

Patrick Chandler, 44, of Newport Beach is horrified. “They’re going to get you one way or the other,” he said after he finding a parking spot with almost an hour on the meter. “What will they think of next?”

The possibilities are endless, Andrews said. One day, parking enforcers might be able to monitor spaces from afar. And, if installed with cameras one day, the meters could conceivably snap photos of license plates and automatically issue parking tickets when time runs out.

“Of course, one of the major issues for consumers is . . . Big Brother,” said Bartholet, who was given a grant to study smart meters. “But my studies have shown that what really irritates most people is people who park their car at a space and leave their car parked all day. People will see eventually that these meters open up spots. People will quickly get past their fears.”

Most merchants applaud the idea. Suhail Abdallah, owner of the Chichis Pollo restaurant, said nothing gnaws at him more than watching beach-goers park in front of his store and feed the meter all day.

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Curb Time

A new high-tech meter uses a metal-detecting sensor to limit how long a car can stay in a space and prevents others from using time left over from the previous parker. How it works:

1. Wire loop detects presence of car when it pulls into space.

2. Wire running under street and sidewalk to meter records time car pulls in.

3. Meter resets when car pulls out, won’t allow purchase of time beyond limit.

Source: InnovaPark