Close to Home by John McPherson
CSA
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Did that ever work for you . . . ?!
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Do cities still have parking meters. The cities around here have these parking spots. Then you go to one of the near by payment systems. Make a payment for the time you think you need (usually up to 2 hours). Then take the printed ticket and put it in the window of your vehicle facing up so the meter-maid can see it.
In my neck of the woods, they have gotten past the printed ticket stage. The parking attendant simply plugs his reader into the machine, and that tells him/her which spaces have “expired” and will receive a parking violation.
Around here some do some don’t. San Francisco has electronic rate setting - if the sensors detect cars in spots more than some percentage of a day the rate goes up. They also notify enforcement if cars don’t move. In some areas the meters work 24-7.
You’d probably get a ticket and a fine for covering up a meter.
They use to have parking meters at Hampton Beach NH. Parking was $2/hr. If you wanted to stay there all day you needed to bring a couple rolls of quarters with you.
In many places in the Bay Area you get a ticket for feeding a meter. The fools who work in retail or even own shops and park their cars all day at metered spaces have to be punished to get them to leave spots for their customers.
St. Louis has both. For example, near where I work both Chestnut and Market have the kiosks but 17th, which crosses both, has electronic meters that take credit/debit cards on the west side and a kiosk on the east.
I don’t know about cities, but the university where I work does. They set aside metered parking for visitors, although there is a centralized digital meter for each group of parking spaces, not a meter at each spot like there used to be. Student and staff permit holders get ticketed for using the spots, even if they pay the meter.
Back when I was a non-permit-holding employee, I used the metered spots on days when I couldn’t ride my motorcycle to class due to weather. I worked on a campus that was close to public parking, and I only traveled to the main campus to take classes.