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"Smart" Parking Meters Considered Dumb
theodp writes "The jury's still out on whether Chicago taxpayers were taken to the cleaners by a rushed 75-year lease of the city's metered parking to a Morgan Stanley consortium. But most would probably agree that the new shared Pay Boxes that replaced the city's old parking meters don't exactly live up to their 'Smart' billing. Here's what the redesigned 'user-friendly' parking solution looks like: 1. Park your car. 2. Walk up to 1/2 block to a Pay Box. 3. Wait in line to use it. 4. Use coins or credit cards to purchase parking time — up to $84 for 24-hours (add $50 if you run out of time). 5. Wait for a paper receipt to be printed. 6. Walk up to 1/2 block back to your car. 7. Place the receipt on your dashboard. 8. Head off to your destination, perhaps passing the Pay Box a second time. So before other cities suffer the same fate as Chicago, Portland, and others, is there a 'smarter' way? Some suggest the ParkMagic In-Car Meter, but no new orders are being taken in Chicago. Any other ideas?"
If only there was some sort of token people could use to activate the meters... But it would have to be something almost everyone carries. Hmmm...
What happens if parking enforcement comes around while you're in the middle of the walk-wait-pay-walk process?
Ask anyone in Chicago who isn't on Daley's payroll, and they can tell you that the jury is not out on the parking meters: Daley, once again, did whatever the fuck he wanted and the residents, once again, were screwed over.
The parking meters described are user hostile to the population of Chicago. However, they do a much better job of keeping the life of the organization that bought them and runs them easy than having to physically collect coins from so many different parking meters.
The government is not the people.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
The car has to be tied to the payment.
Why? It wasn't with the old pay meters -- get out, drop your quarters in, and go. When you drive away from the meter with time still on it, somebody else gets a few minutes free. It would be nice, maybe, for the city (or in this case, Morgan Stanley... don't get me started here), but definitely not necessary.
The ParkMagic in-car meter is a scam on the part of the city to steal your paid-for parking time from you. (To be fair, the new smart meters a half a block away from you are probably a scam too). It used to be that if you had extra time on the meter, someone else could park there for the extra time and save themselves money. Considering that if someone else left with extra time you could park in their spot and take advantage of the free time, over the long run it would tend to average out that you were only paying for the actual time you spent parked in your spot.
Now with the new changes, nobody else can take advantage of leftover time on your meter when you leave, and you can't get any kind of refund. So all of the extra time that people pay for -- the city's getting their money for free.
The whole idea of a smart meter is (or should be) efficiency. It should be efficient for the municipality to collect fees, and it should be efficient for the user to use. That seems pretty self-evident to me. To that end, it is completely reasonable to expect a system that lets you pay electronically at the meter itself. Having to go out of your way an extra block, especially if you're planning on going the other direction, is completely unreasonable. And It has nothing to with fitness. It has everything to do with wasting time that you shouldn't have to spend to begin with. Smart meters should make the process better, not worse.
That only really works if parking is a nearly unlimited commodity. Unmetered parking when parking is scarce just leads to people circling forever, like New York City.
I mean, sure, no payment is always the most convenient option, because you don't have to deal with payment. You could avoid the hassle of tokens or payment cards on a subway if subway rides were free, too.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Probably because the real reader was pried out and replaced with a card skimmer :)
Wow.
It has everything to do with wasting time that you shouldn't have to spend to begin with.
Really? Your life is so busy that you can't waste the minute or so it takes to walk *half a block out of your way*?
Actually, it does. No wonder people in this country are such fat-asses. They complain about walking half a damn block and try to rationalize it as "wasting time". Buddy... enjoy your life. If you live your life by such a hectic schedule, it won't be the obesity that does you in, it will be your little ticker deciding it doesn't like all this stress you are putting on it and subsequently deciding to malfunction--aka a heart attack.
Sheesh. One half block.
It's not 'free time' The meter is still counting down, and just because someone else paid doesn't make it 'free time', except to you. The city is still getting paid for the time.
Now, if the city wants a way to be able to get paid for 12 hours of parking in an 8 hour stretch, ok, then the sensors can make you pay every time you enter the space. So they make the minimum time say 60 minutes in front of the dry cleaners and shops, and people come and go every 15-20 minutes, so the meter gets the hour minimum 2-3-4 times an hour. Nice.
But I don't live in Chicago, and never have, so I don't expect my city government to deliberately screw me at every opportunity.
We are learning a lot more about Chicago-style politics than I ever wanted to...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I don't understand the modern viewpoint that cars are evil, and their usage should be discouraged. They are simply an update of the classic horse-and-cart that humans have used for 10,000 years, and the reason humans used these carts was because they were great for carrying lots of stuff.
Don't believe me? Well I just bought almost a month's worth of groceries. Try carrying 20 bags onto the local subway or bus or walk home. I think I'll keep my horseless cart. Thanks.
As to the point of the article - This is just more of the same politician stupidity that gave us hackable, error-prone computer voting (and eventually led to the return of paper ballots). Just because something is "new" doesn't mean it's better than the old system. The old mechanical meters invented in the 1920s may not be sexy, but they get the job done, and as this article demonstrates the new meters are not any better.
An upgrade to new tech is only worthwhile if it's an actual UPgrade, rather than a downgrade.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I'd rather do daily groceries by bike.
Do you have children? Do you live with a partner? Does s/he work? My wife and I each work and get home from work at around 5:30. We have dinner with our daughter around 6 or 6:30, then bath time, story time and bed time with one parent, while the other parent cleans up from dinner. Then it's an hour or so of 'us' time, before we head to bed. Where exactly in our schedule is this mythical time to do 'daily groceries by bike' in the dark pouring rain in February?