A quarter and a quarter mil(lion+)

Reading this mornings S-T, based on the news story and "Our View" piece, the City of New Bedford seems to be a prime location for a segment on "Parking Wars".  

I love that show.  I am not a big fan of most reality T.V., but "Parking Wars" just gets me.  I love the Philadelphia episodes.  The Detroit ones aren't my favorite, and Providence really come off good.  

I love the excuses.  The rationales.  The only thing I don't get is the willingness of some of the people to actually allow themselves to be shown on T.V.  But I digress once again.

Reading the article and the editorial, I am not quite sure I get exactly what the problem is.  There are meters.  You are suppose to feed the meters (not too much mind you because excessive feeding gets you a ticket).  If you don't feed the meter at all, or overstay your welcome.  You get a ticket.  

What's the issue?

I get my fair share of tickets downtown.  There are times when because of other time constraints, the weather, or convenience, I will park my car at a meter instead of the lot a few blocks away from the office.  If on my way into or out of the office, I have an errand to run, I will stop on my drive by and park at a meter.  

At times, I don't have a quarter, at times, I am too lazy to dig on out, and at times I knowingly run the risk.  At times I get a ticket.

About the only potential "problem" is the cashless society argument.  Credit/Debit card meters would be nice, but they are far from universal, even in the big cities.  The lack of them is just an excuse, not the problem.  You go downtown anywhere, you know there are going to be meters and you know you are going to need quarters.

In fact the more legitimate gripe should be quarter only machines.

One of the two S-T pieces references the "hassle" of walking from one of the garages.  First there are shuttles from the garages, and secondly what hassle?

If you go to a mall on a busy day, how much walking do you have to do to get from your parking space to the store you are going to?  How much walking are you going to do in the mall?  Bad weather, see shuttle bus.  Wait for the shuttle bus, think about the time too many people waste circling blocks for a parking space close to the door.

How many of you remember the stories over the years about lack of enforcement of the parking laws?

There is a quote int eh article that "The current practice has the perception of being predatory."  

Seriously?

Predatory would be intentionally short timed meters or willfully neglecting to fix broken meters.  It isn't about giving a ticket to someone at an expired meter.  

Whether you are there 30 secs. after the time period, or are just running in to the store, you know you are suppose to feed the thing.

I see the parking officers all the time.   They do run circuits.  That is their job.  Yes it could be your meter expires just as they are coming down the street.  Could be you parked 30 secs. ago and bang there he or she is.   Could be you should have known better.

Speaking of knowing better ...

Actually I really can't use the "knowing better" here.  Just sounded like a great line to use.

What I do know though is I will be waiting with great anticipation for the posting of the Selectmen's next meeting.  I believe it is for tomorrow.  

Several reasons for that.

I am anticipating several matters which may make the agenda and which will certainly be worthy of discussion.   Whether they all make it or not will determine whether the price tag, or costs if you will, range from say around $900 to $300,000 to $400,000 or somewhere in between.

If you follow this blog, you can certainly guess the specifics of one topic.  Need some clues?  It is old, it is yellow and it isn't used properly (note: tacking guesses will not be posted, unless extremely humorous).  

Clues for another potential topic, well it is a universal problem, with several universal solutions.  It has been sold under the concept of more is better, but now there will be a whole lot less.  

Waxing poetically for the moment, I will say that the tried and trues ways should never be totally disregarded.  We should never simply look to "throwing out the baby with the bath water".  But if we aren't willing to change the water when needed, what is the point of the bath in the first place?