The city of Milwaukee began installing 103 LUKE digital parking meters throughout the central business district in June. The new meters allow people parking downtown to pay electronically or by old-fashioned coins.,”No change? No problem: now you can use your credit card to pay for parking in downtown Milwaukee.

The city of Milwaukee began installing 103 LUKE digital parking meters throughout the central business district in June. The new meters allow people parking downtown to pay electronically or by old-fashioned coins.

Phase one of the LUKE installation was complete and fully operational by the end of July, said Dorinda Floyd, administrative services director for the Department of Public Works.

The new meters serve nearly 1,200 parking spaces, approximately 11 parking spaces per meter.

The city is planning to install at least 200 more LUKE parking meters by the summer of 2009, Floyd said. An additional $1 million has been requested for phase two of the meter project in the city's 2008 budget.

The new computerized meters are scattered throughout downtown, as far west as 10th Street near the Wisconsin Club.

Milwaukee has the second-largest deployment of LUKE meters in the U.S., manufactured by Digital Payment Technologies of Vancouver, British Columbia. Houston has installed 750 meters, said Chris Chettle, vice president of marketing for the company.

The company first developed LUKE parking meters in 2004 and Chettle said their name comes from the 1967 film "Cool Hand Luke." In the first scene, Luke Jackson, played by actor Paul Newman, cuts off the tops of conventional meter heads.

College campuses like the University of California-Santa Barbara and Texas A&M University also have LUKE meters, Floyd said.

There's no word yet on whether the new meters could be lining the streets of Marquette's campus by the time the project is complete.

The meters have primarily been installed in $1-an-hour parking zones.

The city decided to install the digital meters downtown to make parking easier for members of the business community. Now people downtown for meetings can use a credit card, get a receipt and use it as a business expense, said Cecilia Gilbert, spokeswoman for the DPW.

Between Aug. 20 and 24, more than 35 percent of LUKE parking meter revenue and a quarter of total transactions came from credit card usage. Some individual meters east of the Milwaukee River recorded half of their transactions were with credit cards, Floyd said.

"We view that as pretty high this soon," Floyd said.

Not everyone may be used to the new meters, but Floyd said public service ambassadors and the parking enforcement officers have been trained to help the public with the new meters.

"We do know that some people are confused or don't know how to use them," Floyd said. "We believe that is standard for any new technology.

"The machine is simple to use. I just think it's intimidating for some people."

So far, the city reports the new meters have been operating without error. But a third of the new space markers have been vandalized, Floyd said.

"With anything new, (vandals) have the need to damage them," she said.

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