High-Tech Parking Meters Coming to Walnut Creek

Like a little harder cut of the steering wheel as you back into a parking space, the city of Walnut Creek is making a parking adjustment.

"We want to pay by space because it's easier for the customer," city traffic engineer Rafat Raie told the City Council Tuesday.

The city had experimented with in the last two years. The conclusion: They are cost-effective in parking lots where a single station can handle dozens of spots, but not so much for on-street, curbside spaces where a station governs payment for only a few spots, said Raie.

The city is going forward with plans to install up to1,000 high-tech, single space meters downtown that will accept credit cards, coins and sometime soon cellphone apps. The system will include single-space sensors with a Web interface that will help parking enforcement and the tracking of parking patterns, said city parking engineer Rafat Raie.

The high-tech meters might be on a slightly faster track than the sensors because there is apparently only a single vendor for the meters, Raie said. The sensors will go to open bid with three vendors competing for the civic business.

The council unanimously approved the purchase of up to 1,000 single-space meters, 1,073 sensors and monitoring equipment, for an amount not to exceed $900,000.