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Michael considered fate at 15:10   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

Perhaps technology can make things better. Vancouver becomes first major city in North America to allow paying your parking meter from a cell-phone:

you can pay parking meters from your cellphone, get a text message warning the meter is about to expire and even top up the meter without going outside.

..Motorists can call a city phone number, provide the number of the meter and order exactly as much time as they need, up to the normal limit of the meter. That means no more plugging a dollar or two into the meter when you intend to stay only 15 minutes but you're short of exact change.

..If people use less time than they ordered, they can call to have the excess time deducted.

The biggest downfall of this?

Verrus [Mobile Technologies, a Vancouver company that has contracted the service] gets paid through a 30-cent surcharge paid by the driver, which it calls a convenience fee, on each parking transaction using the service.

Once again, they manage to find a way to make things more expensive without offering much more of a service. Nevertheless, this will be a boon for the poor workers who I always see rushing out to the meter every few hours to pay.. sometimes forgetting, sometimes getting a ticket, sometimes swearing up at the sky, or just the ticket dude writing them up with an unsympathetic shake of the head.

The real question is.. if you're making your way downtown every day and don't feel you can afford the daily parking lot fee, shouldn't you be using public transit?