Parking at most Boston meters to cost more starting this summer

The mayor's office announced that come July 1, the cheapest parking meters in the city will set you back $2 an hour - up from the current $1.25 - as part of a bid to reduce street congestion and raise money for road infrastructure projects.

But parking at a meter in Fenway/Kenmore and in the Bulfinch Triangle near the Garden will cost $2.50 an hour. And in the Back Bay and along streets controlled by the city in the South Boston Waterfront, expect to pay up to $3.75 an hour.

Carp away, but the mayor's office notes this still makes Boston a bargain compared to Chicago and San Francisco, which charge $6.50 an hour to use one of their meters.

According to the mayor's office, the increases should bring in $5 million more a year, which will be pooled with $3 million from a 10-cent-a-ride surchage on Lyft and Uber rides to repair sidewalks, build or extend bike lanes along Massachusetts Avenue and Columbus Avenue, re-paint the Silver Line bus lane through Chinatown, do something about Blue Hill Avenue and buy equipment and supplies for traffic-calming systems such as flashing speed signs and flex posts across the city.

The city began fiddling with meter parking in the Back Bay and along the waterfront in 2016:

The pricing approach taken in the Back Bay, where the City applied a consistent price over a larger area, showed the most positive results, as double-parking decreased by 14 percent, and illegal parking decreased by an average of 22 percent. During this pilot, on average a parking space was available on every block.