http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/nyregion/uprooting-the-old-familiar-parking-meter.html?_r=1
The Last Days of the Old Parking Meter
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
Published: September 18, 2011
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The city will remove its last decommissioned single-space parking meter in Manhattan on Monday, transportation officials said, the start of a yearlong process that will eventually eliminate all the steel-and-sludge-hued meters in the city.
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The old-fashioned, pole-mounted meter will now yield to the robotlike Meter of Tomorrow: a solar-powered box, equipped with Wi-Fi, that can handle eight parking spaces at once and can shut itself down on free-parking Sundays.
The city’s Transportation Department, which recently accelerated its meter retirement program, says the change will benefit city and citizen alike: the new meters read credit cards, speak seven languages, require less maintenance, and free up room on the sidewalk.
But the death of the classic meter also means an end to some of New York’s smaller pleasures: the satisfying clunk of a coin in its slot, the illicit thrill of finding an extra few minutes still counting down.
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This hardware upgrade demonstrates that the strategy is raising revenue; nothing else.
Parking meters were originally intended to ration limited parking so that a spot couldn’t be tied up all day.
Europeans solved this with a plastic “sundial”. The driver upon parking would put the “sundial” on the dashboard after dialing in the current time. If you cheated and dialed in a later time, then you risk a ticket. If you overstayed, then you risked a ticket.
Zero capital investment; simplicity.
Argh!
Not all hardware upgrades are worth it. If you’re rationing parking spaces, you could use “sundials”. But if you’re raising revenue, then it’s not enough. The upgrade should be issuing tickets. This doesn’t.
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