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No quarters? Rehoboth Beach meters now take plastic

Hundreds of parking meters were upgraded over the winter

Molly Murray
The News Journal
A credit card is inserted into a Rehoboth Beach parking meter. When meters started taking credit cards on May 27, they didn't include picture instructions on how to insert the card. Now they do.
  • Rehoboth Beach parking meters now take credit cards.
  • Crews have placed stickers on the meters to show credit card users how to insert the card.
  • The first big test of the revised parking system came over the Memorial Day weekend.

No quarters? No cell phone? No problem.

Hundreds of parking meters in Rehoboth Beach were upgraded over the winter to take credit cards as an alternative to the old silver standard of beach meters: the quarter. And visitors can still pay with the phone app ParkMobile.

Now, all they need, said visitors Nancy and Mark Lindsay, of Crownsville, Maryland, are some easy-to-follow instructions.

The couple took a day trip to the city last week and tried two different credit cards in one of the centralized parking stations along Rehoboth Avenue.

They tried with the magnetic strip up. They tried with it down. They tried to the left and right. They pulled the card out fast and because it was embedded with a chip, they inserted it and let it linger. Nothing worked.

Nancy Lindsay from Crownsville, Maryland, pays for parking in Rehoboth Beach. New units now accept credit cards and the ParkMobile App.

Still, they were happy to see they could use a card as a payment option, even as they struggled to get it to work.

Since then, city crews have placed stickers on the meters to show credit card users how to insert the card — magnetic strip down, chip end first. The machine prompts users when to remove the card.

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Rehoboth parking crews have added stickers to credit card meters that show how to insert the cards.

For the most part, people love the addition of the credit cards as a payment option, said Carol Everhart, chief executive officer of the Rehoboth Beach-Dewey Beach Chamber of Commerce.

"I think it's in transition," as people learn to use the new option, she said. "It's probably going to take a while."

She praised city officials for adding the hundreds of meters with credit card readers after visitors requested the option last summer.

And no wonder since it now takes plenty of pocket jingle — as in eight quarters — to park for one hour in Rehoboth and many other coastal resorts.

"I have people who aren't going to do anything but quarters," Everhart said.

The first big test of the revised parking system came over the Memorial Day weekend, and revenues were up over last year, even though Memorial Day Monday was a rain-out.

The mix of quarters versus credit card: 55 percent of the $141,029 take from the three-day holiday weekend was from quarters. Forty-five percent was from credit cards, said Rehoboth Beach City Manager Sharon Lynn.

Use of the cell phone parking app was off from last year, she said, but exact statistics on use of the app weren't immediately available.

Camden resident Chad Harrison takes a photo of the ParkMobile App in Rehoboth Beach. New equipment was installed this winter.

Total meter revenues were up from the previous Memorial Day weekend by about 9 percent. But Mayor Sam Cooper warned that fees associated with the credit card option will need to be considered. The city pays a fee for customer use of credit cards just as most business owners do. And card users pay a flat, 50-cent surcharge to use plastic.

Parking is big business in Rehoboth and is the single largest source of revenue in the municipal budget. In this budget year, between meters, permits, fees and fines, parking is expected to bring in more than $5 million thanks to a $50 increase in both transferable and non-transferable residential parking permits.

Parking surpasses property taxes and every other source of revenue entering the city’s coffers – much of it still 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.

Lynn said she expects visitors to become more comfortable with the meter payment options as the season progresses.

Rehoboth has been transitioning to multi-option parking since it partnered with ParkMobile to allow for pay by phone app parking in 2012. Prior to that, some city meters did take credit cards, but the city had to pay a fee for each transaction and the scanning devices for the cards didn't always work.

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From 2012 to 2015, visitors could park using the app or they could pay by quarter. In addition, city officials installed quarter machines on Rehoboth Avenue and the Chamber of Commerce worked with local businesses to encourage them to provide quarters when visitors asked.

Everhart said the app has been very popular with the people who use it. For instance, many of the city's visitors were already familiar with it because it is also used in Washington, D.C.

She said she urges visitors who want to use the app to signup before they get to the city. That way, they can be sure it loads properly and they can work through the process rather than trying to load and setup on a bright, sunny day when a cell phone screen might be hard to read.

Olivia Marshall of Hockessin pays for parking with her credit card in Rehoboth.

She expects visitors will also embrace the credit card readers that are on the 46-multi-space parking kiosks along Rehoboth Avenue and the 453 single space meters on First and Second streets and Wilmington, Delaware and Baltimore avenues. Remaining metered spaces in the city still take only quarters.

"The use of quarters is not going to be nearly as prevalent," she said. "Everybody has a phone or credit cards."

Everhart said she typically uses the mobile phone parking app but earlier this week, when her car battery went dead during a city commissioner workshop, she ended up using a credit card to pay for additional time on a meter. She said she was able to work through it by following the instructions on the single-space meter screen.

Sam Cooper

Olivia Marshall, of Hockessin, tried out the credit card option, too, during a recent day visit.

"I haven't been here since last year," she said. "I used a credit card."

The cards and the phone app are a great convenience, said Chad Harrison, of Camden.

"I still remember having to leave the beach" to put more quarters in, he said.

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