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Old Posted Aug 14, 2011, 6:55 PM
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The city that loves the car was slow to pay for parking

I also posted this in the noirish Los Angeles thread, but I thought this was an interesting article from the LA Times from last year. It's another example showing that Angelenos were so in love with their cars from the very beginning that even the City Council didn't want people to have to pay for parking on city streets.


L.A. THEN AND NOW
The city that loves the car was slow to pay for parking


LA Times

By Steve Harvey


Los Angeles lays claim to being the birthplace of such phenomena as drive-in church services (Emmanuel Lutheran, North Hollywood, 1949), hang-gliding (Dockweiler State Beach, about 1960) and the Cobb salad (the Brown Derby, 1937).

But the city was no pacesetter in the category of parking meters. Oklahoma City was the first to install the coin confiscators in 1935, and more than 60 other municipalities followed before Los Angeles joined the crowd in 1949. Even Fairbanks, Alaska, beat L.A.

Three times -- in 1940, 1942 and 1946 -- the City Council rejected the notion, much to the delight of The Times, which scoffed that it would be "just as fair to install turnstiles for sidewalk pedestrians."

When a nickel-an-hour rate was first talked about in 1936, The Times warned ominously that "the autoist using the space for only a few minutes would have to pay as much as he who uses it for the full period."

The newspaper also asserted that the number of parking spaces would be reduced because they "must all be long enough for cars with the largest wheelbase."

And what of the technological challenge facing autoists?

"Can a stranger, or even a forgetful homebody, be mulcted for a fine if he doesn't know how to work the contraption?" asked Times columnist Chapin Hall in 1940. "Even the mechanics of dropping a nickel in a slot is a major problem for some."

But others pushed for the gadgets, including council members searching for new sources of revenue, lobbyists for the meter manufacturers and merchants who wanted to eliminate that early 20th century villain known as the "parking hog."

Finally, in 1949, the City Council gave in and installed 400 of the 5-cents-an-hour devices on an experimental basis on Lankershim Boulevard near the present site of the Metro Red Line station in North Hollywood.

[...]

Read the rest by clicking on THIS.
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Old Posted Aug 14, 2011, 8:10 PM
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"Can a stranger, or even a forgetful homebody, be mulcted for a fine if he doesn't know how to work the contraption?" asked Times columnist Chapin Hall in 1940. "Even the mechanics of dropping a nickel in a slot is a major problem for some."
It sounds funny but this is actually quite prophetic. My city uses digital cards for parking meters (in addition to coins) and they malfunction so much in winter that people basically get free parking. In addition to that, the card slot is in the same area as the coin slot, and while it is on an angle, it isn't too unusual to see someone try to stuff a coin into it.

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Old Posted Aug 15, 2011, 5:34 AM
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And now another round of parking evolution reaches nationwide with the installation of payboxes and stanchions. Though the city of Chicago has left some of the antique meters behind for historical purposes and with a sign that says "This meter was left for the convenience of bicyclists."
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Old Posted Aug 16, 2011, 12:47 AM
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It sounds funny but this is actually quite prophetic. My city uses digital cards for parking meters (in addition to coins) and they malfunction so much in winter that people basically get free parking. In addition to that, the card slot is in the same area as the coin slot, and while it is on an angle, it isn't too unusual to see someone try to stuff a coin into it.
Some years ago the cities of Pasadena, Glendale and Los Angeles started installing those pay machines where you enter your space number along the curb and pay at a single machine with either a credit/debit card or with coins. When they were first installed, there were actually people who had trouble figuring out how to use them. I've encountered some machines where the card reader was malfunctioning. Los Angeles has also installed some of the more traditional-type parking meters, except they are solar powered and less likely to malfunction. They also take credit/debit cards.
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Old Posted Aug 16, 2011, 1:11 AM
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Are parking meters really so expensive to maintain that having a single unit somewhere away from the parking spot is a better deal?
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Old Posted Aug 16, 2011, 1:27 AM
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^I think aesthetics is a big point that makes municipalities choose the pay stations. I prefer them for this reason too.
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Old Posted Aug 16, 2011, 3:33 AM
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Are parking meters really so expensive to maintain that having a single unit somewhere away from the parking spot is a better deal?
A single unit is Waaaaaay cheaper

1. They are cheaper staff. Multi-space meters are the most common and pay by space seem to be more common around universities and hospitals. Pay by space is probably the cheapest since the enforcement agent needs to attach the wand on the computer to find all the offending spaces so they don't have to check every windshield or the old pole mounted meters.. It probably cuts their time by 60%

2. They are more durable. They are out of the way of cars so they don't get bent. Less of them are likely to get vandalized or jammed. The paybox in front of my apartment is built like a safe.

3. The machine notifies the city when it is having technical problems or needs more paper or change removed. Conventional meters lack this technology and require a lot of wasteful checking up on them when an automatically generated scheduled route can be assigned by payboxes.

Last edited by Rizzo; Aug 16, 2011 at 3:48 AM.
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Old Posted Aug 17, 2011, 12:05 AM
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It makes sense for parking lots but considering how much people complain about having to put change into parking meters, I can't imagine forcing them to walk to the end of the block to do it improves their opinions of them.

At least bus stops are still free.
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