Comparing parking meters

Parking meters were a constant topic during the time I lived in Rhode Island and wrote for Newport This Week. Going to city council meetings and reading local newspapers felt like Chinese water torture. It seemed like every week, people argued in letter form about paying for yet another forest of single space parking meters. Downtown merchants complained that parking meters contributed to lower sales; and 'nimby'' (not-in-my-back-yard) types went on-and-on about how ugly they were and compared them to casino slot machines.

They didn't know about multispace meters, or  ultra-modern, time- and space-saving inventions that appear in most European cities... and in our village.

It's a 'pay by space' meter. Here's how it works. You park in a space, memorize your space number, go to one of the two meters located at each exit of the garage, enter your number and pay. The meter prints out a receipt, which you can just keep on your person. The meter memorizes the time remaining in a space. No need to go back to your car.

The one disadvantage of our machine is that it doesn't take credit cards. But I've seen similar meters in Switzerland that do.