... but they still suck.
"The meter kept giving me my money back as I approached enough coins plugged in to get the hour and forty five or so minutes I needed to pay for so that I would not have to move my car before six when you no longer have to pay." I was so frustrated by the experience that I wrote that sentence without punctuation.
Recently ... I was in Seattle for the Seahawks and found parking after 4 on the street near the part of town I like to park in for sporting events. Since it was 2 hour parking all I needed to do was pay for enough parking to get to 6 and then the free parking period would kick in and I was free.
However, the new meters did not cooperate.
There are elements of the new meters I like. I like that I don't have to have coins to park because they take cards. I like that some of the tickets are mobile and can go with you. I like that the tickets print an exact time so you can make certain to know exactly how much time you have.
I don't like that you have to walk up the street to pay a meter and then go back to your car. I don't like that you can't simply add a coin later if you might be running late because you need an entirely new ticket. I liked the occasional free parking that would happen when people would randomly plug meters. I also don't like that after numerous times at two meters on a street I was trying to park on that I ended up with a ticket that read 5:55PM and really couldn't do anything about it but pay again and hope that it would not reject my quarters on the 14th try.
I paid $3.50, although I was trying to pay $3.75 instead. Apparently, It would not take the extra quarter because it was not giving me the full 6 minutes in value. That is a design flaw. In the past I could have just kept adding the quarters, or come back after getting a cup of coffee. Options are no longer available.
Bear in mind I was in Seattle, a place that likes to issue tickets. That 5 minute gap was hugely stressful, because the odds were that I would get a ticket between 5:56 and 6:00 on the streets of Seattle. So, despite the fact that they say you are not supposed to, I walked back to my car after getting a bite as 5:55PM approached and paid $0.85 on my debit card to cover the final little while and get a ticket that read 6:00PM.
I miss the older and simpler method.
