Park, walk, pay, then walk away. Just remember your spot number.

That will be the new routine as Victoria replaces its 1,900 downtown parking meters with new central pay stations starting early next year.

City council awarded a contract Thursday for the new system, which carries a $3-million price tag and has $400,000 in annual operating costs.

The old meter poles will stay, but will be topped with numbers. Drivers will park, take note of their stall number and then punch it in and pay at a solar-powered, bright blue computerized kiosk. They'll have a choice of paying by cash, credit card or the existing pre-paid parking smart card.

There's no need to walk back to your car to display a pass - the system will let parking enforcement officers know who's paid via wireless handheld computers. Each kiosk will serve between two and four parking spots.

"It's much easier to use than a bank machine," senior buyer Keith Hennessey reassured city councillors, who have waffled before about moving to the high-tech system over fears it could confuse some users.

Parking services manager Victor Van den Boomen listed the system's virtues from his perspective, including its added security over the more-vulnerable meter heads, 200 of which have been stolen in recent years.

The existing meters were installed in 2000 and are already past their five-year expected life, he said.

And the cost of operating them is growing. As the heads are no longer being manufactured, parts are hard to find and the units can't be replaced when thieves take them, Van den Boomen added.

Council peppered staff with questions about how the system will handle various challenges.

In response to her question, Coun. Charlayne Thornton-Joe was told anyone who gets a ticket because they punched in the wrong spot number can easily fix the problem, so long as they keep their time-stamped receipt.

Mayor Alan Lowe wanted reassurances the system wouldn't allow people to 'repeat meter' – paying twice to stay put in a 20-minute space. He was told it does.

"This could be very important to me in a few months," joked Lowe, who faces the loss of parking privileges in front of City Hall when he leaves the mayor's job in December.

The lone voice of opposition to the new system was Coun. Sonya Chandler.

She said she's felt anxiety over the $3 million in capital spending for the project.

"The complaints I hear aren't (about) 'those darn parking meters,'" she said. More grumblings have come about how commissionaires enforce parking rules, the number of parking spaces and problems with smart cards.

Chandler suggested the money would be better used training commissionaires or on looking at ways of reducing cars through transit alternatives linking downtown with other parts of the Capital Region.

kvass@vicnews.com