As a member of the Parking Management Group (PMG), my mission was to help come up with a better parking system for San Diego. I had become a member of this group by virtue of the fact that I was a member of the Center City Advisory Committee (CCAC) which I had joined as a duly elected public official since I had tallied more votes in my Cortez Hill neighborhood than any other candidate. I think I had all of 6 votes to become the Residential Owner representative from Cortez Hill to the CCAC. From there my public career catapulted into becoming the Cortez Hill representative to the Parking Management Group which was composed of businessmen, community activists, merchants, CCDC and CCAC representatives.
It had been noticed by a previous incarnation of the Parking Group that many of the city's parking meters were not bringing in as much money as they might. We were armed with statistics that showed occupancy rates for meters in different neighborhoods. Some neighborhoods like the Gaslamp district were almost continuously occupied. They had high occupancy rates approaching 100%. In these neighborhoods it was hard to ever find a parking place. From the point of view of the average citizen, this was undesirable. From the point of view of the merchants in the neighborhood this was only desirable if the time limit on the meters was low. In other words they wanted people to park, make their purchases and then leave so that the next customer could find a parking place as quickly as possible.
A different problem occurred in outerlying areas. There, a parking place could remain vacant most of the day with the result that very little money would be collected from the meter. The occupancy rates were very low. It had been suggested that parking was a resource and that proper management would produce high (but not too high) occupancy rates at all meters in all neighborhoods. In order to accomplish this, it would be necessary to realize that the law of supply and demand was at work and to let the meter rates "float" depending on where they were located. At that time all meters throughout the city were set to the same rate - $1.25 per hour. It was decided that a 70% - 80% occupancy rate was desirable. This would insure that there were always some spaces available, and also that all parking spaces were actually being utilized to a greater extent.
In addition to meter rates, time limits were important. Currently set at 2 hours for the most part, it made more sense to extend the parking time limits in underutilized areas to 4, 6 or 9 hours in order to increase occupancy rates. The 9 hour limit would allow employees to park at a meter for a reasonable rate and work an 8 hour shift.
The PMG had two main goals: (1) to change meter rates and time limits in various "test areas," monitor the new occupancy rate statistics that would supposedly result from the changed rates and limits, make necessary changes and (2) choose a new "high tech" parking meter that would also be installed in test areas to gauge public response. The parking meter industry had made great forward strides technologically in recent years resulting in a meter that was essentially a small computer which could do remarkable things like take credit cards, control multiple parking spaces, vend tickets etc. Each meter would have a backlit readout screen that would be capable of assisting the parking customer in various ways and would be solar powered. Meters could sense when a space is unoccupied and zero out the meter so that the next occupant would not be able to use time left over from the previous occupant. But this information could also be useful to those seeking a space since that information can be transmitted to the motorist in need. Sensing when a space is vacant is also an important feature in order to gather occupancy rate statistics.
A sophisticated "smart parking system" would have every meter linked to a central location that could monitor the status of each meter and send out meter maids to give tickets when a meter had timed out. All sorts of statistics could be gathered which would be useful in deciding what rates and time limits to set the meter at. These could be adjusted for the extant conditions at various times of day or days of the week or for special events. It was thought that optimum management of the parking spaces considered as a resource would be beneficial both to citizen-consumers and to the city since it would maximize parking meter revenue. There were only two hitches in this scenario.
The city actually makes three times as much revenue from issuing parking tickets as it makes in revenue from money actually deposited in the meters themselves. The other reason was that, in a fully automated system, manpower needs in the Parking Management Department would probably diminish. Therefore, municipal employees in this department soon started attending Parking Management Group meetings in numbers far exceeding the number of members of the group itself. Although the PMG had considerable authority from the City Council to change and adjust parking meter rates and time limits on a test basis as well as to implement a pilot program involving high tech meters, the role of the municipal employees seemed mainly to be to insure that any new "smart parking" system would not cause any diminution in their employment. In other words none of them wanted to lose their jobs to an automated parking meter.
So there were a number of competing interests that were naturally in conflict in devising a change in the parking system as it had been known and in devising a new system that would serve, inasmuch as possible, the various interests of the community such as residents, merchants, employees, commuters and tourists. On Cortez Hill, where there were a limited number of relatively unoccupied meters, I recommended going to a $.50 rate and a 9 hour limit. This brought down the wrath of a number of residents who envisioned a deluge of downtown commuters and construction workers. Most of the spaces on Cortez Hill were unmetered. In fact Cortez Hill had a relatively new Residential Parking Permit program whch allowed unlimited parking for residents and 2 hour parking for everyone else in the unmetered spaces. Since there were always at least some spaces available, no resident would ever need to park at a meter. Also if, indeed, the new proposed rate and time limit resulted in a measured occupancy rate greater then 80% at the meters, it was the job of the PMG to either raise the rate, increase the time limit or both until the occupancy rate came down below 80% which would insure that metered spaces also were always available. In addition this whole program was simply an experiment at the end of which meter rates and time limits would revert to the values they had going in. Simple facts such as these seemed to be beyond the grasp of a majority of residents as well as a majority of the PMG in which expertise on parking issues or an ability to tackle the issue on a rational as opposed to an emotional basis were limited commodities. 
Deliberations in the weekly meetings of PMG seemed to drag on interminably. When we finally got down to business, we painstakingly went over every square inch of the proposed test areas for the purpose of determining the change in parking rates. From my point of view, it didn't matter if we came up with the ideal rate on the first cut with the ideal rate being the one which produced a 70% - 80% occupancy rate. The idea was that, by using feedback, the ideal rate could be approached by a series of successive iterations. For instance, say an area was underutilized with an occupancy rate of 30%. By lowering the meter rate from $1.25 per hour to, for example, $.50 an hour, we could then measure the hopefully increased occupancy rate and then either lower or raise the rate some more. But the mentality of the group was that you had to come up with the ideal rate on the first go-around. A lot of the people in the group were technically unsophisticated and had their own ax to grind. However, some such as CCDC representative Frank Alessi, Gary Smith, President of the Downtown Residents Group, and John Cunningham who had had previous parking system experience were quite knowledgable.
As for the high tech parking meters, the idea was to solicit proposals from three companies and then in super secret deliberations pick the one that seemed most promising for installation as a pilot program. The problem with this was that the municipal employees had complete control over this process and they drug it out for months. Their strategy from the beginning, I think, was to control this aspect of the work, and, as the gatekeeper for this process, they certainly did. I think their main goal was not to pick a system that would benefit the average citizen in order to make his or her parking experience more convenient and pleasurable. No, their goal was to pick the system that would tend to decrease jobs in their department the least. With the latest technology it was possible for every parking space to be monitored from a central location making the incessant prowling of meter maids unnecessary. Also tickets could be issued, statistics gathered, rates and time limits changed and meters monitored to see if they were in working order from a central location thus diminishing manpower considerably. This prospect was not lost on the municipal employees.
After months of volunteering, I finally realized that my time was being wasted by the constant sandbagging which resulted in continual slippage of dates for the selection process. So I quit. But before I quit, I had familiarized myself with the proposals from the three companies under consideration. There were two main competing technologies: Pay and Display and Pay and Go. In the Pay and Display system, the motorist goes to the parking meter, puts in his or her credit card, coins or a San Diego smart card, and then gets a paper ticket which he or she then prominently displays on his or her vehicle. In the Pay and Go technology, there is no need for a paper ticket since the meter identifies each space and the motorist keys in the ID for his or her space. The beauty of the Pay and Go system is that, if the motorist inserts a credit card or a smart card, an out of time violation could be a thing of the past since the card need not be charged until the motorist's actual return. In addition some meters will allow the motorist to add more time from his or her cell phone and send a text message just before the time expires. So the only violation that ever needs to be enforced is the over the time limit violation. There goes the Parking Management Department's budget since the bulk of the money comes not from those who legitimately pay for metered parking, but from parking violation revenues!
In addition tickets can be issued and even paid right at the meter thereby eliminating most enforcement personnel. This is precisely why the City chose the antiquated technology of Pay and Display rather than the technologically more advanced and consumer friendly Pay and Go system. The municipal employees didn't want their meter maid jobs eliminated and the city did not want its revenue from out of time parking violations eliminated. So a disservice was done to the average citizen motorist. The City chose the Cale MP 104 Compact Meter although the same company makes a more sophisticated Pay and Go system, the MP 104 XL Meter. In my opinion Reino had the more advanced parking meter system and the better proposal. So despite the mayor's hubris about this new high tech experiment, it's nothing to be that excited about. It's distinctly second rate. Pay and Display will make it necessary for a motorist to remember when his or her time is running out and return to the meter to pay for more time displaying a new paper ticket on his or her window when a simple cell phone call could do the same thing.
Other cities are installing more advanced systems. Montreal, Portland, Denver and Houston are other cities going high tech.
San Diego is going to high tech parking but their initial pilot program is using antiquated technology that doesn't have the consumer's best interests at heart. If parking were truly considered a resource to be utilized in the best interests of the public instead of a cash cow for the city and its employees, the PMG would have chosen Pay and Go instead of Pay and Display. The financing of the pilot program may have been a contributing factor in choosing second best instead of best as the idea was to get the parking meter company itself to pay for the installation of the new meters in the hopes of getting a city-wide contract later on. Since the city is effectively, if not legally, bankrupt, this might have determined the chosen proposal. If so, it is another illustration of the fact that beggars cannot be choosers.
