Boston's new parking meters will accept credit cards again

Boston's new parking meters on Newbury Street will soon start accepting credit and debit cards again, and this time there won't be a $2 minimum charge.

City officials said the meters will be reprogrammed by mid-December to bring them into compliance with credit card rules that bar merchants from requiring minimum payments.

Once the changes are made, credit and debit card customers will be able to select whatever amount of time they want to buy, anything from 25 cents to $2. The $1 minimum charge for customers paying with dollar bills will remain in effect.

Thomas Tinlin, Boston’s transportation commissioner, said he did not know what the city pays in credit card transaction fees, but he said any reduction in income from eliminating the minimum payment requirement would be more than offset by lower repair and service costs associated with the new meters.

The new meters have failed to work less than 1 percent of the time, city officials say, compared to 25 percent with the old meters. Tinlin also said Chicago allows drivers to charge whatever amount of time they want at city meters and less than 1 percent charge 25 cents.

He also said early tests of alternative meters in Boston allowed drivers to charge whatever amount of time they wanted, and nearly all purchased the maximum amount.

Kelsey Kirk Hambley of Boston, who had difficulty with the new meters when she first used them, said she was "pleasantly surprised" by how quickly the city responded to the problem.

"If my number of parking tickets is any indication of things to come, there’s no danger of losing revenue," she said.

Boston officials discontinued the credit and debit card payment option on Nov. 21, after the Globe reported that the minimum payment requirement appeared to violate Visa and MasterCard rules. The new meters were installed Oct. 19 on a four-block stretch of Newbury Street between Arlington and Exeter. Each of the 23 pay-and-display meters covers seven spaces, replacing 162 single-space meters.

On a per space basis, city officials said, the new meters have brought in at least 34 percent more revenue than the old ones. The new meters accept quarters, dollar coins, dollar bills, and credit and debit cards.

City officials say there have been few complaints about the new meters, but drivers interviewed by the Globe last month have grumbled about the $2 minimum with credit cards, the inability to piggyback on the unused time of previous users and problems getting the machines to accept dollar bills.

Under its contract with Parkeon Inc., the meter’s manufacturer, the city can purchase 1,000 meters over the next three years, with the first 25 costing $7,219 apiece and the remainder costing $10,000 apiece. The city collected a record $10 million in parking meter revenue last year.

(By Bruce Mohl, Globe staff)