Have you noticed the ATM-looking machine in the parking garage? It’s not an ATM: It’s a new “Multipurpose Parking Meter” recently launched by FAU’s Traffic and Parking to, as explained by their helpful Web site, “improve customer convenience, predictability and reliability.”
Active since June 16, the newly-installed Multipurpose Parking Meters work by exchanging parking space and banking information with a virtual teller that FAU Traffic and Parking calls a “highly secure computer interactive system.” But the system isn’t as helpful as it looks.
Pockets seem to be full of lint, not change? No problem – the nifty new meters are said to accept coins, cash or credit.
Yet, the update sounds too good to be true, and perhaps it is. Imagine this scenario: You are driving through a thunderstorm to get to your final exam and you notice your parking decal is missing. No time! You’re losing precious gas, so you quickly remember the visitor parking lot. You don’t have enough coins, so you insert a credit card into the new parking meter but all you see is a malfunctioning and twitchy screen. And yes, I’m speaking from personal experience.
Since I spent at least 10 minutes scrounging for any kind of change to feed into the “convenient, predictable, and reliable” stupid meter, and was both wet and late for the exam, it’s safe to assume I’m personally not a Multipurpose Parking Meter fan.
“It’s faster with a credit card because you don’t have to go looking for change you might not even have,” says sophomore Cecilia Leach, who plans to use the meter while parking this semester.
But, the good expectations of the revolutionary meters fall short of “satisfactory” and land on “poor” when a transfer student visits FAU and gets questioned about her bitter visitor parking experience, with what seems to be the only new parking meter on campus.
“It only takes ones,” explains Allison Lehmann as she tugs at her sweater logo, making it very clear she’s a proud student at the University of Florida and not FAU. “I had to ask someone for change this morning because it doesn’t take credit cards!”
But that’s not the only thing you’re probably wondering about. You may be asking yourself the difference between the new and the old meter, or how it even works.
According to the question section of the Traffic and Parking Web site, the new parking meters control a section of a parking lot, versus the individual coin meter for one spot. So when and if you decide to park, remember to look at the cement below your feet at the number of the space, enter that number into the meter, pay the fee with whichever legal tender you have – or whichever the machine’s in the mood to accept – and then collect your receipt, exhale and you’re done! Oh, and you might want to jot it down in case you forget: It can be quite a walk from the space to the actual meter.
“Aw, that’s gay!” says junior Cleon Andricks as he tries to process the punch-in-the-number-for-the-parking-space business. Once he was made aware that Traffic and Parking could simply stroll on by and check the database for paid parking spaces in the meter, he was suddenly overcome with the urgency to leave campus.
And like him, I was still in the dark with some unanswered questions about the meters. On June 30, I decided to call the number posted on the Traffic and Parking Web site to get some answers. I unwillingly started a game of phone tag with the coordinator in administrative services, James Johnson. After calling once and being told he was on the phone and then calling twice more and leaving a voice mail that went ignored for three days, I decided the third time would be the charm. But I got Johnson’s voice mail yet again.
Right on cue, as I left my room to tend to a call from nature, I hear my phone ring and immediately waddle my way back to my room only to just miss Mr. Johnson’s call. Tag! I’m it. I stood there and realized that my pants-down run had been in vain because I still didn’t know where the parking meters were located, how many there were, or if they’re installed on the Davie and Jupiter campuses. Nonetheless, we’re still playing phone tag – and yes, it’s his turn again.
So if you ever come across a Multipurpose Parking Meter and you decide to charge your credit card, bring some change. Bring some cash too – just in case. That way you’ll be prepared for whatever multipurpose meter personality you are faced with.
