You need grit to get by in Baltimore, a city with lots of big urban ills and pesky daily aggravations. What you don't need anymore, at least in some parts of town, are quarters.
The cashless society has come to a parking space near you.
To spare coinless drivers untold frustration, Baltimore is yanking out dozens of old parking meters and replacing them with a high-tech version that takes credit cards.
No more digging for stray quarters between the bucket seats. No more risking tickets. And never having to beg for change at the nearest coffee shop? Priceless - for parkers, at least.
The 55 to 65 high-tech meters - each of which covers multiple spaces - are being tried out for free. Buying them would cost the city at least $385,000. Replacing all of the city's meters with this new model could cost as much as $9 million over several years.
Chump change, say people in love with the new meters and the time-stamped tickets they spit out.
"I am too tickled about it," said Henri Banks, an Owings Mills resident who was delighted to avoid "the whole quarter thing" when she parked on Charles Street for a business meeting one morning this week. "I scrounged around for three quarters and saw the credit card thing, and now I'm sold."
That kind of convenience can help take the edge off city living, even in the shadow of bigger problems such as violent crime and high property taxes, said Larry M. Gant, an associate professor with the University of Michigan's Center for Urban Innovation.
"Usually, what drives people crazy and really increases stress is not major things but little things," he said. "You know, the straw that breaks the camel's back. [The new meter] is small, but it will be really helpful. It's another nice thing that people will remember about a city."
Baltimore has 10,500 parking meters, thousands of them simple, mechanical ones that aren't much more sophisticated than the nation's first, installed in downtown Oklahoma City in 1935. Many of them need to be replaced, said Jeff Sparrow, executive director of the city's Parking Authority.
Those popping up downtown and in Fells Point run on solar power, beam real-time parking data to City Hall and allow parkers, at least in theory, to take unexpired time to a new parking spot.
"Pretty fashion-forward for Baltimore," said Tyler Gearhart, executive director of Preservation Maryland, who, despite his usual preference for conservation, won't be sorry to see some of the old meters go. The new multiple-space ones create less "visual clutter" than the traditional single-space style.
