New Parking Meters

Not here. In Sacramento.

I hardly ever use parking meters but, next time I have to use one, I hope it's one of these new ones (username humboldtlib, password blogspot) that Sacramento started using recently.

Looks like a vast improvement over the old meters. Not only can you use credit or debit cards with them, you basically buy a parking permit for a certain amount of time that can be used later at a different location if you still have time left on it.

Neat idea. Don't know how cost effective the new machines will be, but for the end user, it probably won't matter when they're parking.

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Speaking of parking permits, how does College of the Redwoods handle their one day parking permit's now?

I haven't been out there for years, but they used to have a machine that accepted only four quarters for a days parking. That was back in the late '70s, early '80s. If you didn't buy a semester (back then C/R was on the quarter system) permit, it would drive you nuts if you got to the parking lot and didn't have enough quarters for the machine.

I usually managed somehow but one time I didn't have enough quarters and didn't want to hassle trying to find quarters somewhere as I only had to go to the Administration building for something that shouldn't have to take more than ten minutes.

I decided to take my chances, parked without a buying a permit and ran into the Admin Building. Got hung up, though, and ended up staying for maybe half an hour. Went back to my car and I'd gotten a ticket that ended up costing me ten bucks later on.

Kind of burned me up but, thinking back on it, I suspect the C/R security guys have little to do but try and catch people parking without permits. They probably would of caught me if I'd only been parked there five minutes.

Has their parking permit system changed since I last used it?