Atlantic Station Adopts Pay-By-Phone Parking Meter; Decatur Weighs In
Decatur Metro | March 8, 2010This morning’s AJC reports on Atlantic Station’s new pay-by-phone parking meter called “Parkmobile” and predicts that such an effort might “herald wider adoption in Atlanta”, though does elaborate on why.
Decatur uses a rival company with a more excited name, MobileNOW!. In the article Assistant City Manager Linda Harris states that Decatur is “is happy with the rival system it has tested and is working on making it permanent.”
I don’t park all that much in downtown Decatur, so I recognize I’m probably not the right person truly evaluate this technology. And I certainly think there’s a future in parking meter technology that automatically deducts funds via a cellphone, but I don’t feel like we’re quite there yet. At least for the casual user. The current technology demands a lot more time and energy to register and use the cell phone system, than to just use a quarter or go on looking for non-metered parking. But maybe it’s worth the effort for those hardcore Decatur street-parkers, once up to their ears in quarters.
I’d be interested in hearing more points of view on this, especially now that we’ve had a bit more time for people to try out the new meters.
Latest from Decaturish
I got a pay by phone account for parking on the square and I can’t use it. You have to punch in the parking space # and I can’t get my phone to punch in the ‘#’ sign when I’m logged into their system. The first time I parked and got the account, a very helpful guy who answered the help number told me the problem would be fixed. But the last time I tried to park, I had to call the help number, and spent 10 minutes on the line only to be told by someone with a very thick accent who could not understand my name or phone number, even after I spelled it out very slowly s-e-v-e-r-a-l times, that I don’t have an account. *sigh* So that was a $10 investment down the drain… So I’ll be sticking with quarters as long as the nice folks at the Brick Store are willing to give me change.
I use it all the time and have only two issues. Sometimes the call does not pick up and I have to redial. Also, one time I had run out of my credits and i had to go online to replenish my funds.
I will go and check now and see if there is a auto draft when you get down to like $2 or something.
I have found the pay-with-hammer method to be very effective.
It’s worked for me but I use it so infrequently that I forget every time how to do it and waste alot of time with that. I have to agree that finding some quarters at the bottom of my purse or under the seat of the car is faster.
I think that it is easier just to use coins. the phone thingy never worked for me, maybe i was doing it wrong but oh well…
I have used the system a few times and I really like it. I never seem
to have coins when I need them for a parking meter so this is great (I always have my phone with me) and coins don’t send you a reminder when your time is up. My only gripe is that not all the meters in Decatur are on this system.
Cellphone meters??? A study in technological intoxication.
Here is an idea, once a year, I go to city hall (or online) and pay oh, I dunno, $100-$200 and get a serial (cereal) numbered sticker that goes on my windshield. That sticker give me 2 hours at any meter in Decatur.
The PALS (why do they seem to be anything but my pal? but that is another conversation) can chalk my tire and ticket me if I got beyond 2 hours.
simple
very low capitol investment
Infrastructure is mostly in place
Gives the city revenue right now that they do not have to share with the “provider”
Still prevents all day parking space hogging
Who knew about this?!!! Depending on the true cost, it could be darn nice for someone who has to park downtown a lot. It’s great to walk/cycle but many of us have little ones in tow and byzantine carpooling, sherpa duties and need to park the mom-mobile.
This would also make a good gift. Or auction item.
Darn nice for those that park downtown a lot, but I would guess that the counter-argument is that it wouldn’t provide an alternative for out-of-towners without any change.
But I get your point.
Might be workable if the goal of metered parking was revenue, but it’s not. Metered parking is designed to provide convenient access to downtown retail and, while this idea does address the need for turnover of spaces, it misses the fact that–in this era of endless choices and easy mobility–downtown’s life or death is dependent on destination traffic on top of consistent locals. All of which is dependent on ease of use.
Prepaid parking permits create a barrier for the tourist, the serendipitous visitor, the infrequent customer, the special occasion diner, etc., all of whom are critical for retailers to survive. We can’t bemoan a struggling main street and complain about metered parking at the same time. If they’re something we value, we need to support our retailers in other ways besides just dropping in to buy something.