Parking Credit Cards?
Sep 24th, 2007 by sorbe
New parking kiosks have made their way onto the streets of Boulder, which got me thinking about alternatives for people in Boulder to pay for parking, rather than carrying a pocketful of change or charging their parking toll to their credit card. I personally enjoyed the old prepaid meter keys, which offered motorists a quick and easy alternative: insert the key into the meter and viola, you were off.
How about a city-issued parking credit card similar in function to the old meter keys? Local businesses or DBI could team-up and provide a parking discount card, maybe with a couple of $$$ on the card that could be used for the meters. Since the new kiosks accept credit cards, it seems that an idea like this would be relatively easy to put into practice.
Another option that sounds appealing is a transponder, similar to the toll-road transponder units. These could be mounted to a vehicle’s dashboard or windshield, and would automatically charge the owner for parking. The unit could even be calibrated to calculate overages of time beyond the 2-3hr parking typically permitted, and charge a premium for this time.
On further exploration of this idea, it appears we’re not the only ones interested in payment alternatives. Check out the European company Parkmobile, who has been offering a similar system for several years. Closer to home, a Boulder company — Mocapay (”mobile cash payment”) — offers a system of paying for goods and services with your mobile phone. And, while Mocapay isn’t yet tied to the parking meters, the University of Colorado recently installed parking kiosks that do offer the mobile phone payment option, through a Canadian-based company named Verrus Mobile Technologies. The easier the City makes parking payment options, the fewer headaches they’ll have, I think, in the long run.
This Shawn Coleman (yes candidate Coleman) But I am writing as a my role as Citizen-at-large member of the Downtown Management Commission to let you know that we are working on a pre-paid smart card system that will work in both the parking garages and on street kiosks. When this system becomes available, those with a readable balance on their meter keys will be able to transfer that value to the smart card.
Shawn,
It is good to hear about the improvements to the parking kiosks and the future payment options. Not having to charge a credit card every time you park will be nice.
How about local downtown businesses get a discount on the parking and in turn offer these cards back to their customers/patrons.
What does the Downtown Management Commission do?
Sorbe-
Hope you make it back to see this response. Currently there is a parking validation program where downtown merchants get a reduced rate for the parking stickers for parking validation in the parking structures. The Smart Card feature will be available “soon” (municipal speak for less than 6 months away). It might be possible that parking can be paid for with downtown “gift certificate” cards as well since those DBI cards are visa/mastercard based.
As for the Downtown Management Commission:
The DMC is a 5 member, city council appointed advisory board, charged with the economic and cultural vitality, of the Downtown district, as well as the fiscal health (municipal for budget) of the CAGID (central area general improvement district, or municipal for the Downtown commercial district) We have a monthly meeting, the first monday of every month at 5:30 in the City Council Chambers. All council advisory boards are volunteer here is a link to the boards and commissions page on the City’s website, check out, the City does a recruitment every January so if you find a board that deals with things your interested in you can apply as long as you are a registered city of Boulder voter.
recruitment
http://bouldercolorado.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=70&Itemid=208
DMC
http://bouldercolorado.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=507&Itemid=271
Downtown
http://bouldercolorado.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1238&Itemid=438
-Shawn