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Binghamton, New York installs 50 more solar-powered parking kiosks

March 13, 2017

Binghamton, New York has rolled out its final 50 parking kiosks, replacing almost all of downtown's old meters with electronic, solar-powered kiosks that accept credit and debit cards, coins and $1 bills, five months after Mayor Richard David unveiled a pilot program for the kiosks, according to The Press Sun Bulletin. Almost all of the roughly 800 old meters will be replaced with 55 kiosks, each of which covers about a block of parking spaces.

With the kiosks, drivers pay for a ticket, and put that ticket on the dashboard of their car. Right now, credit and debit card users can only pay the full amount — $1 for two hours of parking — but those using coins can still pay in 30-minute intervals.

Unlike meters, kiosks don't allow drivers to "piggyback," using the remaining time on another person's meter in order to avoid paying.

Since being installed in September, the five pilot kiosks have generated $19,000 in revenue from 22,000 transactions, according to city data. That excludes the revenue generated from any parking tickets on cars using the kiosks.