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Smart homes and autonomous vehicles are the public face of the connected world, but they are just one part of a bigger picture … the smart city.
As the number of people who live in urban areas increases, there is a consensus that addressing the challenges of tomorrow is best served by starting today. The United Nations has predicted that the global population will hit 9.7 billion in 2050, with the majority of those living in cities. The utopian vision is that these cities will leverage data, technology and innovation to make life more comfortable for its residents … a vision that has every chance of being a reality.

Beginning next week the DDA will replace the circa-1950 meters throughout the district with smart meters. The new meters will accept coins and credit cards for the 50-cents-an-hour fee. Officials say the meters are designed to be intuitive and will guide the user through the transaction.

Big changes may be coming to the way metered parking is priced on the streets of Vancouver.

City staff want councillors to approve next week a “data-driven program” that would help set curbside parking rates as high or low as needed to make sure just one or two spaces per metered block are left empty. Some spots could have different day and evening rates under the proposed system.
If the plan is approved, staff would begin by rounding hourly metered parking rates across the city to the nearest whole dollar. That means all $1.50 and $2.50 meters would become $2 and $3 meters.

Here comes a tale of technology.

Sometimes technology is good, sometimes it’s bad, and other times, it’s confusing.

The tech confusion, in this case, started with a self-pay parking fee kiosk. And it led to questions about why the state’s municipal courts don’t use technology to lower the number of court appearances by ticketed drivers who want to plead not guilty.

There are two types of markets for parking in Washington DC: the private market, which tends to charge what the market will bear, and the government, which charges a price that’s deemed to be “fair” and “non-exploitative” to the constituents in residential areas. How’s that working out for everyone?

Over the past few years, seven San Francisco neighborhoods have served as a testing ground for SFpark, an SFMTA-initiated project that adjusts parking meter prices based on the time of the day and the day of the week.
Originally piloted with 25 percent of the city’s parking meters, SFpark’s demand-responsive pricing will roll out to the rest of San Francisco’s parking meters early next year—including in the Castro.

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