Baltimore officials estimated that the first 300 to 400 meters would net the city an extra $1 million increase in collections. Instead, the revenue increased almost $2.5 million.
It's money that Baltimore can sorely use. Mayor Sheila Dixon has cut $36.5 million from this year's budget and is slicing $65 million from next year's. That figure could grow if the state, facing a $400 million shortfall, decides to reduce funding for city programs.
In Portland, Ore., revenues increased about 30 percent over three years as that city installed multispace meters, said Ellis McCoy, the manager of the city's parking program.
There, parking citations dropped about 5 percent after new meters went in, McCoy said. "We'd much rather people obey the parking laws than get the citation," he said.
But in Baltimore, there has been no dip in parking fine revenues.
If some parkers are inadvertently paying too much through credit cards, others have found a way to exploit a loophole. The electronic meters spit out a paper receipt with an expiration time, and there is no penalty for motorists who pass unexpired receipts to the next person or move their cars to other parts of the city.
John Furst, who was parking at Broadway Market in Fells Point recently, said he quickly realized that he could buy time on a meter on Eastern Avenue - where the city charges 50 cents an hour --- and use that receipt a few blocks over in Fells Point where it costs one dollar an hour to park.
"If you are in the know in Baltimore, you can do well," Furst said.
Little, with the Parking Authority, said that in the future the city might restrict receipt reuse to sectors in the city.
Another benefit to the city is reduced fraud. Because money collected from the new meters is "fully auditable," the city knows exactly how much it should receive from each meter. "Each payment gets registered," Little said. "We can report how much should be in each canister. We can reconcile everything."
