If you've parked in Center City or University City in the last year, chances are you've tried to pay for parking using one of those new kiosks. 970 of them have been installed in Philadelphia since last July. They're supposed to be more user-friendly than traditional meters. BUT - Action News has learned a couple glitches could be costing taxpayers more time, more money, and more hassle.
These kiosks are designed to make it easier for you to pay to park. The sign says it accepts quarters, bills, and even credit cards. They don't always work as they're supposed to and you may not always be getting as many minutes as the kiosks would lead you to believe.
Action News tried 9 kiosks along Walnut Street and only one out of the 9 would take a credit card.
Laurie Block says as a result of defective kiosks - she's received a couple parking tickets at $36 a pop.
The kiosks' credit card transactions are made possible by an AT&T wireless connection; if there's no connection, the kiosk won't take your card.
The Philadelphia Parking Authority says the machines in the Rittenhouse area have experienced a remarkably high drop rate of their wireless connection. "Prior to June, we were in the 25% in that area from Broad to 18th," Corrine O'Conner of the Philadelphia Parking Authority told Action News. "Since the beginning of June, it's now in the 65% (range)."
AT&T tells Action News it was alerted to the problem late last week, at the same time that Action News discovered the issue. AT&T believes it's caused by a high number of kiosks conflicting with network cell sites in the area. The company says the issue is now a top priority and it's tweaking settings and moving the cell site radios to optimize coverage so the entire issue should be fixed within days.
In the meantime, the PPA says the drop rate in Rittenhouse has already gone down to just 9%.
But what about elsewhere in the city?
"It's 4% failure, so that is a significant difference from Broad to 18th."
Here's another issue with the kiosks: You're not always getting the number of minutes the kiosk might lead you to believe. A sign on the kiosk clearly says 25¢ equals 8 minutes. Action News put in one quarter at 12:30 p.m., and the display indicated we could park until 12:38 p.m., which is correct. The next quarter increased the time to only 12:45 p.m. - but you'd probably expect it to read 12:46, one minute more. It also seems the more money you put in, the more minutes you lose! If you put in $1 worth of quarters, you would think you'd get 32 minutes of parking time. But the display on gave us 30 minutes, a 2 minute deficit.
"We're going to change the signage to state that it's $2 for 1 hour of parking."
The PPA says the real breakdown is that 1 quarter equals 7:30. Because the current signage could be misleading, the agency is getting rid of the quarter reference altogether.
Of course, Action News will back out in the next week or two to make sure both issues we uncovered really have been fixed.
If you have problem with a parking kiosk, the Philadelphia Parking Authority says you can call 1-888-591-3636 or you can contact the PPA public advocate online at http://www.philapark.org/.
