I hate to make a closely guarded secret public but I did promise I would publish this information if I ever 
found it. [see "armless robbers"] The parking meters in St. Paul only take quarters and a quarter lasts a few seconds . . . that might be an exaggeration but it is my blog. The ramps are nice but most of my visits to downtown last less than an hour so they are kind of impractical.
After years of paying parking tickets . . or lets just say collecting parking tickets I learned that it is possible to buy a debit card that works in the meters. I bought such a card and had $50 put on it. The card works in any parking meter in St. Paul and money can be put on it for Minneapolis. There isn't any information about this on the City of St. Paul web site, it is kind of like the permit parking system, cloaked in mystery.
The only way to get the cards is in person at these locations:
1. Citizen Service Center, room 110 at City Hall, 15 W Kellogg Blvd.
2. A vending machine is located in the skyway between the RiverCentre Ramp and the Xcel Energy Center.
3. Public Works, Traffic Division at 899 Dale Ave N.
The initial purchase of a card is $5.00. You may load up to $100.00 on the card.It may be used in either Minneapolis or Saint Paul, however, the card separates the accounts. The money loaded in Saint Paul can only be deducted in Saint Paul and the money loaded in Minneapolis may only be deducted in Minneapolis.All Saint Paul meters are equipped to receive payment from the debit card.
Note: The only location that has free parking is the Dale avenue location, the rest of them have meters.
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I’m a St. Paulite currently living in Singapore and cards of these type are in heavy use here. In fact, ALL vehicles have a device mounted to the dashboard in which people insert charged up “cash cards”. As you drive about town, your card is automatically deducted when you drive into high density areas (more expensive during rush hour). Similar to an electronic toll booth. Also, when you enter a parking garage (which is pretty much everywhere) your card is charged when you leave the ramp based on the amount of time you’ve been parked. Whenever you are charged it beeps and shows the balance on the card. It’s pretty slick. It’s not something that americans would ever warm to, but I think it’s kinda cool. Ironically, despite all this high tech wizardry, instead of meters for street parking, they have an archaic system of punch cards that you need to buy at 7-11 and require you to punch paper chads out to identify the time you parked, but they’re only good for 1/2 hour or an hour, so you have to guess at the time you’ll be parked. If it is going to be for a while, you’ll be doing a lot of chad punching.
I wonder why they didn’t decide to use a regular credit/debit card. Around here all the vending machines accept credit cards.
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How does it know how much time/money to deduct when you use it at the parking meter?
I would assume each time you insert the card it deducts .25 cents. Or for every few seconds you leave the card in the meter it deducts another .25 cents.
Yup that is how it works. I started with $50 and it didn’t take long before there is less than $30 on it. Think 25 cents buys like ten seconds or something.
I sometimes wonder why do they have parking meters but I guess its just a way for them to earn money. Nice post and good job.
A note: room 110 at City Hall is not where you get these (at least, not any more); there’s a vending machine just inside the door of the City Hall Annex, across the street. To get your first card, you’ll need a $20 bill. That will buy the $5 card and give you $15 worth of parking.