From: "Mark" 

This is beachfront parking (most towns are $1/hr) with an average stay of
perhaps 4-5 hours, i.e. arrive at 9AM, leave at 1-2PM. Sure a few will
arrive at 8AM and leave at 6PM but they're in a distinct minority. More
often the earlybirds leave and the nightowls arrive to take their spots for
the second 4-5 hour shift of shiftlessness on the sand  

One of those $1/towns is using the stall meters, but with the proximity
sensor to reset it to zero when your car backs out. My town put in about 3
of those (near me, they may have put more in other test locations as well
-- err, I'm not sure if they're the proximity version, but they're digital
instead of wind-up) and every day there were cars in those spots with notes
on their windsheilds "I put in $x.xx, the meter is broken" I
don't recall seeing any tickets on them as well, so our town has a heart I
guess 


"Ellen K."  wrote in message
news:vh99i19l4jtveufttinhl16th2bvj1cq76{at}4ax.com...
> On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 16:59:20 -0400, "Mark"
 wrote in
> message :
>
>>Couldn't find the original thread. It turns out that the next town over
>>put
>>in those kiosk style things and set the rate at $2/hour, which is 50 cents
>>more than the meters they replaced. As if that weren't bad enough, they
>>don't give change, one lady in the story had put in a $20 bill and
>>expected
>>change... Instead she got 10 hours of parking.
>>
>>No refunds, well until a lot of complaints, so now if you on your own
>>initiative convince the cheif of police that you made an honest error
>>he'll
>>direct the clerk to give you a refund. The mayor says: "...
the financial
>>benefit to the borough outweighs those problems." And *former*
councilman
>>Loughran, whose idea it was last year before he *lost* his re-election bid
>>said, "My main idea when I started was to increase revenue and I've done
>>that."
>>
>>Now here's the coup de grace: The cops are writing tickets on cars anyway,
>>sometimes 10 minutes into their 2 hours etc. One lady plead not guilty,
>>waited 4 hours to do it, then was told she had to see the officer that
>>wrote
>>the ticket but he wasn't there. Her husband went back for the new hearing
>>and they gave up and paid the fine.
>
> In California I think you subpoena the officer and if s/he doesn't show
> up you win automatically.
>>
>>Sheesh! >the
>>$20 bill people aren't entirely without fault, on the other hand very few
>>people would ever want to park for 10 hours, so they should probably allow
>>it to accept only singles or no more than a $5 bill -- they won't>
>
> There is 10-hour parking in front of my company's building... used by
> the folks who don't have a building parking pass and who get there early
> enough to grab one of the street spaces.  Comes out cheaper than parking
> in the building over the course of a month, because we have to pay
> $45/mo to park in the building, but the 10-hour parking only costs $1.
> Takes a year (or more -- 13 months in my case) to get to the top of the
> waiting list for a space in the building, most people park on the street
> and then waste huge amounts of time moving their cars every two hours...
> personally I just paid for a space in the building across the street,
> but it was more expensive than ours (company only subsidizes $40 worth)
> and added a good 10 minutes each way to my commute.
>>
>

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