PORTLAND, Maine — Portland officials are close to signing a contract for electronic parking meters that take debit and credit cards in addition to coins.
Spokeswoman Nicole Clegg says the city will pay $150,000 for 18 of the parking kiosks and install them next spring.
The Portland Press Herald says the meters are part of a pilot program to allow drivers to use plastic if they don’t have coins.
City officials agreed last summer to buy the kiosks from Florida-based Cale Parking Systems USA, but the deal was put on hold after the FBI investigated allegations that a company executive gave bribes or kickbacks to an official in Portland, Ore., in exchange for city contracts. Cale Parking Systems is now being bought by the meter manufacturer, Cale Group, based in Sweden.
“Spokeswoman Nicole Clegg says the city will pay $150,000 for 18 of the parking kiosks and install them next spring.”
These 18 meters will have to accumalate 300,000 uses before they break even…….thats alot of parked cars…16,666 per meter. If each meter is used for 12hrs a day at $1. per hour parked, it will take roughly 1400 days …..nearly 4yrs for these 18 meters to pay for themselves. It’ll be interesting to see how many get damaged before then. What a waste of money just so you can use plastic to park your car.
Plus how much of a fee will the city half to pay the credit card company for every transaction ??
good move
Wow, $150,000 for 18 parking kiosks…..Crazy…..
These 18 meters should be placed in spaces designated for the public servants who came up with this bright idea.