Smart meters usher in new era of paid parking in Long Beach

Corey Washington
Contributing Writer
Downtown Long Beach is now a little more futuristic thanks to the addition of the city’s new smart parking meters, unveiled by Mayor Robert Garcia and three city council members on Monday— the beginning of an ambitious effort to replace all of the city’s coin-only parking meters.

Garcia was joined at the Harvey Milk Park in the Promenade by Vice Mayor Suja Lowenthal, 1st District Councilmember Lena Gonzalez and 3rd District Councilmember Suzie Price to explain the new meters and demonstrate to the public how the meters operate. City officials presented two smart parking meters but emphasized they were the first of approximately 1,620 new meters that would replace the aging coin meters throughout the downtown area, the Pike, and Belmont Shore.
“All 1,620 meters throughout the city will operate similarly, reducing confusion and increasing convenience for residents and visitors alike,” Lowenthal said at the event. “And I think it’s a certainty that really matters for people— it’s to know that when they are in the downtown they can have the same experience throughout the city. We are one city, and their experience with negotiating parking should be the same. I’m very excited about that.”

The city’s new parking meters are capable of accepting credit and debit cards and will eventually have smartphone connectivity features, which would allow users to remotely locate an open parking space using an app. The smart parking meters will continue to accept coins. The meters will also accept pre-payments in advance of parking-enforcement periods and electronically display messages indicating days when parking is not enforced, such as holidays or special events.
With the smart parking meters come new rates, which officially went into effect on Monday. The new parking-cost increase ranges from 25 cents to 50 cents per hour, depending on the area. For example, downtown parking has increased from 50 cents to $1 per hour. Officials said the first five minutes of parking will be free, which is convenient for drivers who may be making a short visit, such as dropping someone off.
The City Council approved the smart parking meters to replace the coin-only meters in early December. The City held 14 community workshops in the downtown area and Belmont Shore, asking for residents’ input between September and November of last year. One of the issues raised by residents was the increased cost of parking if the smart meters replaced the coin-only meters.
“The (smart) parking meters, because they take credit transactions, have a higher operating cost,” said Seyron Foo, a spokesperson for the City of Long Beach. “They have to be networked. To cover the increased cost of credit-card usage, what we did as a part of our parking study, was to assess what other cities have done. And all the cities that did not plan for the increased upgrade cost witnessed a hit to their budget.”
The City pledged to continue its Net Revenue Neutrality practice, ensuring the cost of the parking meters does not exceed the revenue collected from the meters.
Price said the City was cost-conscious with acquiring the new smart meters and partnered with the City of Sacramento in a “piggyback purchasing” partnership.
“The City of Long Beach participated in a process to procure and implement these parking meters that allowed us to save the city a lot of money through our piggyback purchasing process. As as result of piggyback purchasing with the City of Sacramento, we were able to obtain a 12 percent savings as similar procurements by other cities. That is a rate process we went through to make sure we were fiscally responsible in purchasing these meters,” Price said at the event.
The City also announced that sensors will eventually be installed with the new meters to collect parking data. Data collected from the smart meters could indicate if a space is available, the occupancy rate of the space and how long it is occupied by a driver, as well as other data. Officials said the data would be collected and potentially reviewed to make future decisions about parking, such as whether or not the parking enforcement hours reflect the actual use of a space or if parking hours need to be reassessed.
Implementation of the new smart meters is expected to continue over the next four to five weeks.