Needham’s coin parking meters are in for a change./ Credit: Needham Observer
Soon, you may not have to dig for quarters to park in Needham’s premium spaces. By early summer, digital parking meters will give drivers the option to pay with a smartphone app, text message, or credit card in addition to the current coin option.
Deputy Town Manager Elizabeth LaRosee said the need for this change emerged from the town’s 2023 Parking Study. “The transition reflects long-term planning recommendations,” she said, “rather than a response to any single complaint or recent issue.”
Needham officials selected HotSpot Parking as the vendor, LaRosee said, because the system features “reliability, functionality, user accessibility, and [an ability] to integrate with enforcement and back-end management tools.”
Needham is working with HotSpot and Passport, the town’s current parking-enforcement software provider, to integrate the new system. The rollout is in beta testing and is expected to be fully operational by summer, said LaRosee.
LaRosee said the town paid $1,050 to HotSpot for signage directing users to the new payment options. Beyond that initial signage cost, Needham does not incur a per-use cost for the parking sessions themselves. Instead, there is a $0.15 per-session user fee, which is paid directly by the individual using the service.
According to the survey in the Town’s 2023 Parking Study, one-third of respondents were in favor of paying for parking with a smartphone app. Some Needham residents greeted news of the more modern system with a yawn. “I think there’s a lot of public parking that you can access for free,” said Sophia Buckley. “It doesn’t seem to be too big an issue for me.” The availability of free parking around town, much of it near the town center, allows people to just walk where they need to go, she said.
LaRosee said the new system will provide the town with better parking data, streamline enforcement and reduce the need to handle piles of coins.
Cristian Ortega, manager of Town Pizza, commutes from West Roxbury to Needham for work every day. He said the shift to digital payments mirrors people’s habits in a modern world. “Nobody today carries a lot of cash,” he said. “It’s easy because you put a credit card, you don’t have to worry about change.”
Nearby towns, including Natick and Wellesley, have already adopted digital parking meters.
Ortega said his restaurant has faced similar pressure to modernize. “We have to update it because of the kids, they make it easy. All these things, DoorDash, Uber Eats, it’s so much easier for them.”
Some people said the idea of storing their credit card numbers on an app makes them uneasy. “There’s too many things out there,” Ortega said, “you don’t know, they can grab your information.”
LaRosee said the new parking system will protect residents’ privacy and data. The system collects standard parking transaction data to process payments and manage parking operations, LaRosee said, and access is limited to authorized personnel and vendors.
Syed Zakir Hussain, a Burlington resident who commutes to Needham for work, said he prefers to use coins. Learning a new app, he said, can be a burden for some people. The new system will be convenient for “young people, but hard for the old people.”
This story was written by a journalism student in BU’s Newsroom program, a partnership between the university, The Needham Observer and other news organizations in the Boston area.