Crews will continue working Wednesday to try to fix curbside parking pay stations that were struck Tuesday by a widespread failure in Minneapolis, mostly downtown.

The repair workers will resume fixing machines starting at 7 a.m., according to a city news release. As of 5 p.m. Tuesday, about 40 out of the 138 affected stations were back online.

Each affected pay station had to be rebooted individually. Crews started the rebooting near Loring Park and have been working their way toward the river.

A short-term meter amnesty was implemented Tuesday as city crews concentrated their repair efforts on the stations in an area bounded by Hennepin Avenue on the west to 5th Avenue S. on the east. Also affected were pay stations on either side of Hennepin Avenue around Loring Park, the city said.

The problem began overnight following a software update to the parking meter system. A total of 138 pay stations were rejecting payments, displaying a message that read "loading parameter."

The multi-space pay stations, which take debit and credit cards as well as cash, started showing up on the city's curbside landscape in November 2010, steadily pushing aside more of the single-space, coin-only meters that have stood on curbs nationwide for decades.

The solar-powered stations are more convenient for motorists and have produced a sharp jump in revenue for Minneapolis since they were first installed.

They now total about 617 in Minneapolis.

More than half of the city's parking space transactions have been by credit or debit card.

PAUL WALSH