These electronic parking kiosks are replacing traditional meters for onstreet paid parking.

The City of Austin is moving away from traditional parking meters for on street parking to electronic kiosks, but fortunately for cyclists, more bike racks are being installed to replace the lost parking meters.

The system offers the advantage of letting people pay by credit card as well as cash, varying rates by time, higher revenue (no more getting in on others paid time), and the potential for 24 hour/day paid parking. It also removes all the meters, clearing the sidewalks of some clutter. Unfortunately for cyclists, these meters have served as de-facto bike racks for much of downtown, and there loss represents a bike parking dilemma.

Back in January, Marcus discussed this problem and how some cities have kept some of the meter posts and turned them into bike racks. This option was discussed at the Bicycle Advisory Council, but city staff indicated it would cost more money to do the conversion than to buy and install new racks. A commitment was made to replace the lost meters with additional racks downtown.

The electronic kiosks have started appearing this summer and Nadia Barrera from the Bike/Ped section of the Department of Public Works says racks are on the way. “[This] map shows approximately 250 proposed bicycle rack locations in the downtown area,” Barrera said. The locations are pending review by the Downtown Austin Alliance and installation is scheduled to begin by the end of August. “Incorporating the feedback from the Downtown Austin Alliance may result in minor adjustments to some proposed rack locations,” Barrera concluded.

Click here for his res PDF of proposed rack sites.