Looking to park at one of Ohio State’s hourly parking meters? It’s going to cost you a little bit more and could cause some frustration.

Hourly rates at the meters rose from $1 to $1.50 on Sept. 1. Weekday evening and weekend rates also climbed to $5 per day from $3.

Although rates for surface parking have stayed the same for many years, the demand for hourly parking led to the price increase, said Sarah Blouch, director of Transportation and Parking Services.

“Demand for hourly parking is, at times, exceeding the supply of spaces, and our costs continue to rise,” she said.

Transportation and Parking Services recommends parking rate changes to Jeff Kaplan, senior vice president of administration and planning for Transportation and Parking Services. Kaplan then passes on recommendations to senior leadership at OSU, including the Integrated Financial Planning group, Senior Management Council and Office of Business and Finance, before they’re approved by the Board of Trustees.

Despite the increase, parking machines have raised $750,000 annually for Transportation and Parking Services, roughly 3 percent of parking services’ yearly income.

“Our only ability to generate revenue to pay for the new garages we have built over the past 10 years and the campus bus service is through parking fees, and meter revenue is a part of that,” Blouch said.

Not everyone is fond of the hike.

“That’s outrageous,” said Scott Rehbein, a third-year in journalism and frequent user of hourly meters. OSU is “exploiting the stranglehold they have on parking.”

In 2007, OSU rolled out new “Pay-n-Display” hourly parking machines. The new, solar-powered meters were introduced to address the need for hourly parking on campus.

“Rather than taking many spaces out of service to designate as hourly metered parking, we were able to reduce the total dedicated visitor spaces and then allow visitors to pay for their permit and use the regular permit spaces,” Blouch said.

There are now 42 Pay-n-Display meters located on campus.

Old-fashioned meters remain in areas of campus where demand for hourly parking is low.

Many of the Pay-n-Display machines are solar-powered as part of OSU’s “Scarlet, Gray and Green” initiative. Green meters saved Transportation and Parking Services the cost of running utility lines through parking lots and are also “reducing energy consumption and providing an energy cost-savings to the university,” according to the program’s website.

Blouch said the returns on investment in Pay-n-Display machines have been “reasonable,” and reactions to the machines have been generally positive.

“I like them because they are exact in recording what time you paid and when it expires,” Rehbein said. “The paying with credit cards is a huge convenience, too.”

Although Rehbein has not reported any problems with the machines, some have reported complaints about the functionality of the meters, chiefly stemming from their green technology, Blouch said.

“It often will take up to two minutes for the machine to ‘wake up’ after a prolonged period of not being used,” she said. “Customers can sometimes become frustrated waiting for the machine to power back up and complete the transaction.”

In some areas, the machines have also been hardwired because cloudy weather can drain battery life.

A spokesperson for Scarlet, Gray and Green was not immediately available for comment.

Pay-n-Display users will also notice a familiar blue-and-white color scheme on the meters. Eyethink, a design firm out of Powell, designed the signage for the machines.

“One of the concerns for visitors and (hospital) patients is that a lot of times there are language barriers,” said Tom Webster, a partner at Eyethink. “So (we used) the international parking symbol … which we felt was pretty important and so did the university.”

Blouch seemed satisfied with the firm’s work.

“We wanted the machines to really stand out for customers,” she said. “And I think (Eyethink) did a very nice job.”