'Smart' Meters but Few Friends

By MATTHEW EBNET

May 7, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Time is running out on the thicket of high-tech parking meters introduced in Newport Beach last year to keep beachgoers from hogging the curbs along the city’s bustling oceanfront.

The so-called “smart” meters have proved poor moneymakers and elicit grimaces from police as well as from many merchants and motorists.

“It was a dumb idea,” one city meter reader said.

All in all, people clearly prefer standard parking meters, those brainless old-school workhorses.

The city has roughly 2,000 parking meters, mostly clustered around the Newport and Balboa piers. Historically, meters have been the city’s reliable revenue producers. Last year, they--and the parking tickets that sometimes go to inattentive drivers--brought in $1.9 million.

But merchants along traffic-clogged Balboa Peninsula have complained that beachgoers hog the parking spaces all day, returning to re-feed the meters and thus denying spots to shoppers who might spend money at the merchants’ stores.

Enter the smart meter. Last summer about 50 were installed, equipped with computer chips that could, at least theoretically, hold down the time one car could stay in one place. Underground sensors could tell if a car had pulled from its spot; if it hadn’t, the meter would refuse further feedings, forcing the driver to move.

So much for theory. Some drivers were confounded, and then frustrated, by how the meters worked. Others quickly figured out how to defeat them by backing or pulling out of a spot until the meter reset itself and then pulling back in. Some merchants said the new meters didn’t give their customers enough time to thoroughly enjoy their shopping experience. Batteries ran out on meters. There were computer problems. Software glitches.

The test period for the meters was supposed to end in October, but the meters have remained in place. By June, they could well be gone. The City Council is awaiting a report from the city manager. Police said they expect the report to include their distaste for the machines.

“Meter readers just don’t have confidence in the meters’ . . . reliability,” said Sgt. Steve Shulman of the Newport Beach Police Department. “We don’t think they are the solution.”

Ticketing rates for the new meters are only one-fifth the rate of standard meters, Councilman Tod W. Ridgeway said, which police blame on the reluctance of meter readers to trust the machines.

That pretty much defeats the purpose of the whole thing, said Richard Bartholet, a parking expert at the University of Nevada-Reno. “If you take the enforcement out of the equation, then you take away the point.”

To be sure, a few want the meters to stay, saying they just need more time and maybe a little tweaking. Rather than being programmed so that time expires in an hour--too short for a leisurely meal--the times can be lengthened or, in other locations, shortened.

“I think they are the solution,” said Ridgeway, whose council district takes in most of Balboa Peninsula. “This commercial district needs them. We’ve learned so much. . . . If I only could convince [law enforcement] about them.”

At least some of the business owners in that commercial district disagree.

“They’re stupid meters,” said Tony Le, co-owner of Newport Pier Liquor. Last year, Le had predicted the meters would be great for business by freeing up spots. Now he says that if they’ve done anything at all, it has been to confuse or anger his customers.

John Linzmeyer also predicted last year the meters would solve the area’s parking problem.

Now, “I tell everybody not to park at those meters,” said Linzmeyer, owner of Upbeat Rentals, which sells and rents bikes and other sports equipment.

City officials estimate that the meters have brought in a little less than regular meters, rather than the extra money expected.

Kirby Andrews, owner of InnovaPark--the Westport, Conn., company that installed and maintains the meters in exchange for a small share of the meter profits--said his meters “liberate” parking spots. He furiously defends them as the wave of the future and calls the Newport Beach experiment a complete success.

The meters have not been without value. The city has been able to glean some data from meter computer software, such as parking patterns. Still, the consensus that they have not been worth the time or trouble.

“I expect very soon we will get a call saying they don’t want them any more,” conceded Bob Andrews, a consultant to InnovaPark--but no relation to Kirby Andrews. He travels to Newport Beach frequently to tend to the meters. “There could have been more people on board in the beginning; more education would have been crucial. A way to salvage this would be to take the anti-meter feeding element out of it. But I don’t think we will salvage this. Too bad.”

Oudam Chey, 25, who manages his family-owned Scotty’s Fish Fry near the Newport Pier, stood staring at a meter on a recent afternoon. It blinked “Expired” and then “Out of order.”

Chey shook his head. “Too complicated,” he said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Patience Is Expiring

The “smart” meters in Newport Beach may be high-tech, but they are getting low marks from police, drivers and even merchants--the very people they were designed to help. The meters may be removed as soon as next month. Here’s how they work:

1. Wire loop detects presence of car when it pulls into space

2. Wire running under street and sidewalk to meter records time car pulls in

3. Meter resets when car pulls out, won’t allow purchase of time beyond limit

Source: InnovaPark