Village Parking Getting a Much-Needed Facelift

In a town where iPads pepper City Hall and is a gratis luxury, clunky, change-only parking meters stick out like well-dressed hitchhikers. 

The good news for Capitola and its visitors, however, is that the Village's transition toward modernity will take another step in the right direction the first week of November with the installation of 14 pay stations spread throughout the Esplanade, San Jose Avenue and Monterey Avenue.

The stations are set to replace all the individual parking meters on those three Village thoroughfares as upgrades to the current meter system, Capitola Public Works Director Steve Jesberg told Patch.

Come November, each parking space in the Village will be given a unique multi-digit number. This number can then be entered into any pay station for parking payment. The stations will accept $1 or $2 bills as well as credit and debit cards. 

Receipts are not placed on dashboards, as with some parking payment systems, but rather are kept on the driver's person. As time comes close to expiration, the driver can visit any of the pay stations to add time, up to two hours. 

Parking enforcement officers will visit the stations to check for expired spaces rather than visiting every car in the Village.

There are two "main emphases" behind installing the new machines, Jesberg told Patch.

"One is that they accept more methods of payment," Jesberg said. "Right now, it's quarters only and other change. At $1.50 an hour, that's six quarters an hour, so if you show up and park for two hours, you need 12 quarters. So this gives people options on how to pay."

The other advantage to this system is the city's ability to change rates seasonally. 

"We've always talked about having flexibility in our rates, maybe less in the winter and more in the summer, or adding a third hour at a different rate," Jesberg said.

With the driver's ability to pay for an extended time period with paper or plastic, rather than just sliding in as much change as what's in his pocket, the city stands to see an increase in revenue from the pay stations. Such an increase has been observed in other cities using the stations, Jesberg said.

After spending about $10,000 per station, the city could certainly use the recouped cash. 

For now, there are no plans to extend installation of the pay stations throughout the rest of the Village or other parts of Capitola. That, however, is not set in stone.

"If these are successful and everybody likes them, we will look at expanding and hopefully getting rid of all the parking meters in the city," Jesberg said. "But that will probably take us several years to finance. ... Ultimately we would like to get rid of all of our single-space parking."

Should pay station expansion occur, Jesberg said Capitola Avenue and the upper part of Monterey Avenue would be next, followed by City Hall and the Pacific Cove Parking Lot, which has 230 individual meters and one change machine.