SAN FRANCISCO — Amidst a rising cost of living in San Francisco, the commuters of the city now have to deal with increases in parking meter prices starting next month. The changes will only affect credit and debit card users, who will now have to pay $0.27 more to use the SFpark meters that the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) installed.
SFpark was established by SFMTA to help improve the quality of San Francisco’s parking situation. More specifically, it is meant to make more parking spots available and reduce the number of parking tickets. Currently, typical rates for these parking meters are somewhere between $2.00 and $3.50, depending on the location.
SFMTA spokesperson Paul Rose told San Francisco CBS Local News, “If we want to provide this [credit card payment] option, we have to pay for it.”
But it was not always that San Francisco drivers had to pay to use a credit card for the SFpark meters. Back when they were introduced five years ago, there was no transaction fee for using any cards. This was apparently a result of the SFMTA having funding from a federal grant that, for lack a better term, allowed for a grace period of a few years.
Now that it has ended, the department finds it necessary to start charging for card use in order to pay off the remainder of the cost for the meters. The $47.7 million bill that came with their installation is expected to be paid off over the course of the next nine years.
The rate increase announcement comes just one week after the SFMTA introduced across-the-board increases of their public transportation fare. Among these updates, effective since July 1, are the discount cash fare, for students, disabled patrons, etc., which saw an increase from $0.75 to $1.00.
On the flip side, the SFMTA also announced that those using the pay-by-phone method would be seeing a decrease in rates, going from $0.45 down to $0.27. Drivers can utilize this way to pay by downloading the SFpark mobile app.
