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Parking frustrations in Rehoboth

Molly Murray
The News Journal
  • Parking is the single largest source of revenue in Rehoboth Beach.
  • Quarters still are the most economical option.

Parking hell, Delaware resort style, goes something like this: You drive round and round and see the glow of brake lights. Finally, you luck into a newly opened space and pull in. Life is good.

Then, you go to pay the freight and you find these meters don’t take credit cards. There’s an app to pay by phone or there are quarters. At $2 an hour, that’s eight quarters. Stay five hours and you’re talking one of those orange rolls you can get at the bank.

At least there are change machines. But guess what? They only take cash. Put in a $10 bill like Kathy Uram of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, did and it sounds like you’ve hit the jackpot at The Golden Nugget as quarters spill out.

“It’s not tech savvy,” said Michele Dorsey Walfred, of Lewes. “It’s really super inconvenient.”

Walfred’s parking nightmare got even worse. After she parked, downloaded the app and paid by phone – her best option after she learned the meters didn’t take credit cards – her car was sideswiped.

And so earlier this week, she vented on Facebook. She hit a nerve, her post touched off a firestorm of complaints about parking in Delaware’s resort towns.

If all this sounds like small potatoes, think again. Parking is the single largest source of revenue in Rehoboth Beach. This year, between meters, permits, fees and fines, it is expected to bring in $5 million. That’s 31 percent of the city’s revenues.

Parking surpasses property taxes and every other source of revenue entering the city’s coffers – much of it one quarter at a time. All that parking money helps offset the costs of running a summer resort, from lifeguards and extra trash pickups on the beach and boardwalk to summer police and recreation programs.

Rehoboth City Manager Sharon Lynn said she has been fielding complaints this summer that the city doesn’t take credit cards for parking and that the meters are difficult to navigate, she said.

Not so long ago, some of the meters on Rehoboth Avenue accepted credit cards but the city had to pay a fee to process the credit cards. In addition, the scanning devices for the credit cards didn’t always work.

So when city officials decided to sign on with park mobile, which debuted in the summer of 2012, they got a small cut of the processing fees and they dropped taking credit cards.

Often, the meter staff who try to help out, find that visitors haven’t read and followed the instructions on the machines.

“I tried to put my credit card in the machine,” said Mike Donnelly, of Annapolis, Maryland, and that was when he discovered he needed quarters or the phone app to pay. “I only had dimes and nickels.”

So he waited in line at a change machine – one of several the city regularly fills with quarters.

“It’s definitely old school,” he said.

Jack R. McCoy, of Columbus, Pennsylvania, struggled to figure out the multispace meters on Rehoboth Avenue.

“I don’t know how to use this dang thing,” he said.

While many Delaware residents who responded to Dorsey Walfred’s post complained about the cost of parking in Rehoboth, McCoy said that wasn’t his issue.

“They’ve got to make money,” he said. “The place is clean and nice.”

Nearby, Barbara Muhammad, of Philadelphia, struggled to figure out the multispace meters, too. It was a bright, sunny day and she couldn’t read the screen.

Another visitor, Mary Beth Fieni, of Westminster, Maryland, struggled to add more time to her Parkmobile cellphone app. When she couldn’t, she plunked all the quarters she had in the meter.

“I thought it was a great idea, until I used it,” she said, of the mobile phone app.

Then Mary Beth Fieni, of Westminster, Maryland, turned and helped Muhammad figure which multispace kiosk to use. Turned out, she was in the wrong section.

Muhammad said she didn’t mind paying. Often, she said, it is much more expensive to park on the street in Philadelphia. She just wished it was easier to use.

“Two dollars isn’t bad,” she said. “It can be $8 or $10 an hour where we’re from.”

For the Reilly Family of North Rockaway, North Jersey, the parking fees in Rehoboth didn’t seem bad at all. For their family of five, dad Michael estimated that daily passes at the Jersey Shore would cost $50 “just to go on the beach” and then there would be parking on top of that.

The Reillys lucked out and got a space in the ocean block of Rehoboth Avenue. It was one of those backup light moments and they were able to pull into the opening.

They paid with handfuls of quarters.

Sandi LaBrake left one resort – Niagara Falls – to vacation in another.

“We came prepared,” she said. “We knew” the meters took quarters.

“I looked it up on the Internet,” she said.

As for the cost; “It’s a little high but you’ve got to pay.”

Parkmobile does have its fans. Among them, John Magee, of Arlington, Virginia.

“Love it,” he said, as he stood at the meter, held his phone in his palm and opened the app to buy some time at his space.

The same mobile app is also used in Arlington and in Washington, D.C., he said.

Walfred said the problem she had was her assumption that the meters could take credit cards. When they didn’t, she downloaded the app right there on the street. But, she said, she was dressed in business attire, it was a bright, hot, sunny day and she had a little trouble reading her phone screen in the sunshine.

Then, when she went to enter her credit card information as she set up her account, the system wouldn’t take it. She ended up calling the 800 number and had to pay a $2.50 service fee to resolve the issue.

By that time, she said, she was just plan angry.

She really is tech savvy. She was in Rehoboth because the Delaware Future Farmers of America had invited her to speak about social media.

Her downfall, she said: “I didn’t bring any quarters with me.”

Quarters still are the most economical option. The phone app has a 50-cent transaction fee every time you use it. So if you sign up for two hours of meter time, hit the beach and decide you want to stay another 2 hours, you’ll pay 50 cents for each of the two transactions.

The upside, if time expires before you are ready to leave, you never have to leave the beach or the restaurant or the store.

At some meters, there are total time limits. With the quarters method, visitors can go back and feed the meters and extend their time, but with the app, that may not always be possible. Also, if you use the app and leave before the time expires, the next person to enter the space doesn’t get the benefit of your largess. That’s because the app is keyed to the car and not the meter.

The city’s share of the pay-by-phone service fee is expected to amount to about $33,750 this year, according to the municipal budget.

Meanwhile, Lynn said that the number of people using the pay by phone option is growing.

“Parkmobile’s gross revenue is $994,068 vs. $548,155 in 2014,” through August 11 of each year, she said.

“Parkmobile gross revenue for the entire 2014 season was only $770,000, so we've already surpassed that,” she said. “In the fourth year having Parkmobile there has been an increase in the amount of users each year.”

Quarters are still the gold standard in Rehoboth Beach, expected to bring in $2.6 million in revenues this season.

Reach Molly Murray at (302) 463-3334 or mmurray@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @MollyMurraytnj.

Rehoboth Meter Facts

How many: 2,179

Estimated Length of Meter Season: 115 days

Paid occupany rate: 50-percent ( based on 2011 statistics)

Average revenue per meter: $1,660

Cost per hour: $2

What others charge

Lewes

$1.50 per hour

Bethany Beach

$2 per hour

Wilmington

$1 per hour

Newark

$1.25 per hour

Annapolis

$2 per hour

Washington, DC

$2 per hour in premium spaces

75-cents an hour in normal demand areas

Philadelphia

$2.50 per hour

New York City, Manhattan below 96th St.

$3.50 per hour