When I first moved into my Eastwood apartment, the old coin-operated parking meter right outside the building didn’t work.
I kept a close eye on parking etiquette for the first week or so but soon forgot all about the outdated symbol of parking regulation. If I wasn’t getting a ticket, I figured I wasn’t doing anything wrong.
Four months later, a crew showed up one afternoon to replace the out-of-order meter with the electronic version I hate so much. At least, I assume the installation happened in the afternoon. All I really know is when I went to work one morning the meter wasn’t there, but the next morning, it was. Along with a parking ticket with my name on it.
There’s an irony there, right? At least four months went by without anyone attending to the broken meter, but within 24 hours a new machine had been installed and tickets were issued. Not courtesy notices, either. An actual citation (that I really ought to get around to paying).
Well, lesson learned. I seethed for a few days but adapted and now I park off the street.
But some of my Eastwood neighbors — 40 of them, so far — are still seething. An online petition to remove the parking machines from the Eastwood business district has been established on the grounds that the new pay-to-park rules are chasing customers away.
The Eastwood Renaissance Association, the volunteer group that started the petition, has made pulling the parking machines their first initiative. The ERA claims paying to park will prevent people from visiting the whole neighborhood, which will invite “crime, fast-food chains and big-box stores.”
I don’t know about that, but I do echo the ERA in questioning the logic behind installing the machines in Eastwood.
When one hand of the city is working hard to entice and nurture business growth, the other hand is pickpocketing would-be customers. It isn’t losing the couple of quarters here and there I’m worried about, it’s the chilling effect the new parking enforcement will inevitably have on patrons in an already fragile business district.
Update: Since this column went to print, more than 110 people have signed the online petition in support of the ERA’s mission to pull the parking machines. Read more about the ERA’s petition and sign it, if your choose, at petitiononline.com/eastwood .
Ami Olson is the editor of The Eagle. Reach her at [email protected].
