Parking

 It may seem to be a small point, one that has minimal if any impact upon the greater social good - but I dislike paying for parking - I especially dislike paying the municipality to park on public land. It seems to me that I have, through taxes, already paid for the use of the streets. I can think of no logic that justifies me having to pay to park or even worse get fined $15.00 for not feeding the meter.

I can understand the argument for parking fees within a heavily urbanized area where the cost of parking may act as a deterrent to people driving downtown. It would even make some sort of sense if the amount raised through parking income (including fines) was such that the infrastructure of that area was enhanced or at the very least maintained because of the increased revenue. But certainly within the small city that I live in neither of those things are true.

I used to work in an even smaller town where the parking meter ladies (for some reason all of the by law enforcement staff were all female) were acknowledged by all who had to deal with them as being somewhat vindictive, cruel and just downright sneaky. We use to complain of how they would watch for certain cars to be parked a minute over the time allowed before they pounced on the vehicle and wrote up a ticket. When one of my colleagues investigated the issues, they found that the total amount of money raised through both the meters and the tickets equalled what it cost to hire the meter ladies. That is – it was a revenue neutral program. I suspect nothing has changed. Parking meters and the resultant fines do not make a lot of money.  So if meters don’t make money for the municipality and parking meters do not reflect a municipal policy to reduce traffic in the downtown, why have them?

I suspect that there is only one primary reason for parking meters: to discourage those who work downtown from parking on the streets and thereby making it harder for shoppers to get easy access to the stores. So why don’t the owners of the downtown business establishments find a place for their staff to park? It would seem to me to be a rather perverse (if petty) miscarriage of justice for me to risk punishment because the owners fail to make provisions for their staff.

Parking meters at the library are just cruel.