Not just coins accepted at Pittsburgh parking meters
Drivers trying to park on the street and in garages in Pittsburgh will no longer have to keep quarters at hand, but they will want to memorize their license plate number.
On Thursday, the city installed the first 12 of about 550 multi-space, electronic parking meters that accept credit cards in addition to quarters and track vehicles by plate number. The devices were placed on the North Shore by PNC Park. The rest will arrive within the next two months for placement in the South Side, Oakland and Downtown.
“We want to get a lot of it in before school starts again. It's a really aggressive timeline, but we've done bigger jobs in less time,” said Jeff Nethery, general manager and customer service director of Cale America, the company operating the meters.
Pittsburgh will pay Cale $7.3 million over seven years to operate the solar-powered meters. Rather than have a single meter per space, one of the new meters will accommodate several spaces. That will free up room for 500 new parking spaces.
About 3,000 old, single-space meters will go into storage
“Without the (old) meters there, we don't have 22-foot spots for one car. We've added four or five spaces in this area alone,” said Jon Wantz, general manager of Dominic's Famous Deli and Bottle Shop at PNC Park.
Drivers will input their license plate number into the new meters, and then choose how they'd like to pay. The machines accept Visa and MasterCard, as well as quarters, but no dollar bills. Motorists have complained that they don't carry enough change for increased parking rates that now range from 50 cents to $3 per hour, especially if they want to sit down and eat a 90-minute or two-hour dinner.
Parking enforcement officers won't check individual meters to see whether they have been paid anymore, instead using handheld devices to input plate numbers into a centralized database at the Pittsburgh Parking Authority.
Receipts are available, but drivers no longer have to place them on their vehicle's dash for proof of payment.
The next round of meters will come to the South Side Works retail complex in two or three weeks, said David Onorato, executive director of the Parking Authority.
“We're ahead. We have the ground prepped out, the signage up. Once the meters are programmed, it'll probably take a couple of days to bolt them in. Once they're in, they're ready to go,” Onorato said.
After that, meters will go up in the rest of the South Side, and then Oakland and Downtown.
“We're cutting edge — we're investing in a system that works, that's user-friendly,” said Mayor Luke Ravenstahl.
Adam Wagner is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-320-7956 or adamwagner@tribweb.com.
