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City of San Luis Obispo replaces parking meters, installs new pay stations

New parking pay stations.
Posted at 12:28 AM, Apr 30, 2021
and last updated 2021-04-30 13:47:39-04

The city of San Luis Obispo installed new pay stations, replacing the old meters that were stationed at individual parking spots.

Gaven Hussey, the city's Parking Program Manager, said, “We started switching out all the downtown single space parking meters to multi-space pay stations. The reason for this was our parking meters were outdated and the technology in them was going to begin to fail this year. So we had to make a change. That commitment to maneuver to multi-space pay stations was in line with the city plan to start opening up the sidewalks. When we originally pitched this, this was prior to COVID and it kind of aligns nicely coming out of the pandemic we are looking to expand the parklet program that went into place during the pandemic.”

The stations are strategically located so people can pay for their parking at one location, rather than at individual meters, in turn cluttering up the sidewalk.

Last Sunday, the city of San Luis Obispo began switching out the parking meters at the 2-hour spaces, and hopes to finish replacing the rest of them by July, 2022.

All you need to do is punch in your license plate number, insert your cash or card, add the amount of time you want to stay and you get a receipt, which you do not need to display as proof.

Once your license plate number is inputted, it is transmitted to a software that recognizes whether someone has paid or not, how long they have been there and so on. Then, it will alert Foot Patrol.

City officials said street daily parking tickets would go up to $1.75 or $2.00 depending on the location and whether or not you are parking in the downtown structures.

Hussey also said the city is looking into developing a parking app, inspired by similar programs in Pismo Beach, Paso Robles and Cal Poly's campus. They hope to have that finished by July of this year.