New parking meter system may spread to more of downtown College Park

New parking space pay stations are on track to replace individual meters throughout much of downtown College Park later this summer, city officials said.

The 13 new stations will replace nearly 200 meters and four existing pay stations, officials said. The stations would let motorists pay with paper money or a credit card at the College Park Shopping Center and on nearby streets and lets parking officers collect money in central locations rather than in dozens of individual meters, officials said at Tuesday night's College Park City Council meeting.

The city is replacing its existing pay stations at its new parking garage and its municipal parking lot after users complained they were too slow and difficult to use, College Park finance director Steve Groh said. The new machines will include signs detailing how to use them and will process credit card transactions faster, he added.

"I feel very confident that the new machines will address the issues with the existing machines,"Groh said. The new stations cost approximately $10,000 each, he added.

As planned, the city will install five pay stations throughout the 143-space shopping center parking lot, two others along Lehigh Road and Sterling Place and two more in the garage, officials said, news that didn't thrill students parking in the area Wednesday morning.

"This is faster," said Yuki Watanabe, a senior mechanical engineering major, pointing to the meter he just fed in the shopping center lot.

Senior theater major Chelsie Lloyd let out a frustrated sigh at the news. She said she prefers meters to pay stations, particularly at a shopping center, because she is often simply running into a store to pick up food and does not need long-term parking.

"I think the pay station splurge on campus has caused a lot of problems," she said.

Despite its investment in new parking stations, the city has no immediate plans to change its parking rate from the existing 75 cents an hour, officials said.

District 2 Councilman Bob Catlin said he still hopes to see surface lot parking rates increase at some point to encourage more drivers to use the underutilized parking garage rather than circling crowded lots and streets hunting for a space. The original Ledo Restaurant pizza parlor — scheduled to move into the garage's Knox Road retail space from its current location on Adelphi Road later this summer — will also help boost the garage's use, officials said.

The city must get approval from the owners of its downtown commercial space before installing meters at the shopping center and on the two streets, Catlin said. Barring objections, which he said he didn't expect, the meters would go in sometime next month.

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