How Many Philadelphians Does It Take To Use A Parking Meter?

At Headhouse Square recently, the Philadelphia Parking Authority did pretty much the first good thing it’s ever done¹, replacing those normal meters that need quarters that you don’t have with a bunch of those fancy new meters that take bills, credit cards and change you don’t have.

The machines aren’t right in front of spaces, but there are six of them for the 44 spaces at 2nd and South. The PPA likes the new machines because it will be alerted when there are problems (with Wi-Fi??) and it frees up sidewalk space for, you know, walkin’.

We Philadelphians hate the machines because we’re too fucking stupid to use them. The Inquirer’s Katie Stuhldreher in my favorite story of the day:

“I’ve lived around here a long time and I just want to know what the heck is going on. What was wrong with the old meters?” said Hilda Schoenwetter, a retired teacher who parks frequently at Head House Square. [...]

Ed Gray, a driver looking for a space, said he didn’t like having to walk over to the meter in the middle of the block instead of having one right at his parking space.

Maryann Dolan, seeking a space so she could bring her dog in for a doctor’s appointment, looked at one new meter and said: “I don’t know what I’m doing here. I think it’s just ridiculous.”

Yeah, those meters sure are hard. So hard that 95 percent of Portland’s meters use the technology and the city has descended into a pit of lawlessness. The real problem mentioned in the article, where a machine wouldn’t take a woman’s credit card, forced the woman to go into Wawa to get change… which is what she had to do with the old meters.

(Oh, yea, the other problem is you now are pretty much guaranteed a ticket if you run over your time limit, since it’s so much easier for the meter maids to write ‘em. So, yeah, that sucks.)

Anyway, that’s not to say the PPA did everything right here.

In order to ease some of the initial confusion about the machines, the Parking Authority assigned “meter greeters” for the first week of operation to explain how the new meters work. But now Philadelphians are on their own.

I think it might be time to just blow up the entire city and start over.

¹ I don’t really know what I’m basing this on, but as a rule, pretty much every government organization does only one or two good things every 50 years, if ever.

New parking meters on Head House Square confuse many [Inquirer]