Yesterday I had some running around to do. Left my ramp parking downtown, did my things, returned to a meter. I found a parking ticket tucked under my wiper upon my return.

Of course, I'd tucked a couple of bucks in the meter machine, and have the receipt to prove it. I fed the meter at 4:45PM. The time on the ticket was 5:17PM. The meter expiration, according to my meter receipt, wasn't until 6:06PM. I think I'm covered.

I occasionally ponder the meter system. They got rid of the convenient at-the-corner-of-the-vehicle meters with the timer and obvious "expired" flag, and instead added numbered posts that you use to key into a block-central (which I find is usually in the wrong direction of your eventual travel) payment kiosk.

How you pay is just maybe a half-block walk inconvenient. What gets me is that you can no longer pull into a parking spot and see on the meter that there's time available. Nor is it the case that if you pay at the kiosk does it share that there might be time available or apply that to your fee. That means that if someone leaves with any time remaining (as I did, about an hour it turned out), the next person arriving pays for their entire time at the meter.

While this has an edge of fairness, where everyone pays for their entire time parked, it kind of sucks in a community sense, in that someone arriving at a meter with time doesn't benefit from the extra time that may be left by a previous parker. I'm missing that little bit of sense of community. That, and the obvious flag that indicates when the meter is actually expired.