City OKs fancy parking meters

City Council today approved a $15 million contract for 1,500 ultra-modern parking meters on a wireless network that will let people pay their parking fees using cell phones, credit cards and dollar bills in addition to coins. Council chose ACS State & Local Solutions of New Jersey as the vendor for the system, the first part of which should be in place within a year.

Matthew Silverman, Vice President of the company's transportation services, said the meters have been a hit in Dallas, which is switching over to an Internet-based system, and in Washington, D.C., where meters run off a cellular wireless network.

"They love it — the merchants, the businesses, the tourists and the shoppers," Silverman said. "It's very convenient."

Councilmembers unanimously approved the contract and applauded the city's assistant director of parking management, Liliana Rambo, for creating a system that'll pay for itself through parking revenues (though it's not clear how long that will take). The first phase of the meter project will involve installing 750 meters downtown, which will cover 2,300 parking spaces. In the second phase, 750 more meters will be installed to replace old meters and mark new parking spaces around town during the next five years. There are 6,000 metered spaces in the city, so we assume some still won't have the fancy meters.

We took a look at how the meters will work last month; perhaps the most exciting thing is that the meters won't accept payment for spaces where parking isn't allowed, which should help those of us who sometimes have trouble reading all the "no parking" signs. Now if Houstonians could just learn how to park ...