Pluggers by Rick McKee for July 14, 2023

Parking meter? Who goes downtown anymore?

A lot of parking meters maybe not all will take a credit card.

I still remember as a kid needing a nickle to use the pay stalls in public, and some private, bathrooms. The urinals were free so eventually the pay to use stalls were recinded thanks to the work of a California assemblywoman. After her victory when she returned to work there was a “pay to play” bathroom stall lock installed on her office door. Tru story!

Objection: She only has $0.20.

25 cents gets you only 6 minutes

Must plan ahead next time ;-)

Coin meters are disappearing. They’re being replaced by master meters that take CCs or apps on your phone.

That happens at Aldi’s too.

OH no, far worse than that — the parking meter doesn’t take money anymore, you have to download a stupid app, that’s very confusing and makes you think you’ve got the time covered and then next week you get a PARKING TICKET IN THE MAIL FOR $60!

A city i lived in years ago spent millions of tax money to build a parking ranp. It was so far off from the main downtown shopping area few people used it and it was free. So they put the parking meters back in to encourage people to use the ramp. You still can’t find an on street parking spot even today, so the idea apparently didn’t work. Meters take nickles, dimes, quarters, half-dollars, and credit cards.

They did away with meters here and have centralized boxes you pay at. They only take credit cards.

One job I had the soda machine was 25 cents, but unlike this comic the machine only took exact change – two dimes and a nickel.

Ever stop to think how much credit card companies make from each of these “little” purchases? 1.5% to 3.5%. That may only be $0.15 to $0.35 per $10 parking fee, but multiply that by the number of cars in the lot and the number of lots in a city it start sounding like a lot of cash — cash that does not stay in the city. [And then there is the interest you pay when you don’t pay off your credit card balance each month.] Credit card companies did a great job at becoming indispensable in our economic system. It is difficult to park or travel or even get a shake at a drive-thru without one. And every single purchase takes money away from the locale.

Now, if credit card companies got interested in green energy, we would have a network of charging stations spread across the country in no time.

You found a parking meter that takes quarters?

Wow… Have not seen a parking meter in a long time.

You are a plugger if you live in place where parking meters accept coins. I actually haven’t seen one in last decade. Even those ticket based parking automats are disappearing, there’s just a sign that “we accept following parking apps: bla bla bla”.

We have a downtown area with parking meters.

Hate having to park in the city and I hate the new parking meters even more. When you’re old school, new school is frustrating when you’re standing there asking for help and they do not how the stuff works either b/c they bike or walk.

What? The meter doesn’t take American Express?

Luckily my town doesn’t have parking meters…all my quarters are reserved for the washing machines in my building!

Downtown businesses know that parking meters hurt their business. They either leave downtown or manage to convince their town councils that parking meters don’t raise enough money. In my town they have moved the parking meters out of downtown and business areas to government locales only. Even our community hospital now has them. Want to visit a sick friend or relative? Be ready to pay $5 for the minimum 2 hour parking.

It’s an old repeated comic.. with emphasis on old. Heck on this side of the fence we don’t even have pennies anymore.

Looks like she’s still 5-cents shy, IF those are all-nickels in her hand? And, I gotta admit, I’ve yet to encounter a “parking”-meter in modern times. But then again, I avoid gettin’ out of my-backwoods here in the Ozarks as much as possible, so, there ya’ go, y’ know…!☺

Or, the parking meter only takes debit or credit cards.

I ran a store in downtown D.C. and one day the city came through my street and installed mounting poles for parking meters. The next day a crew came through and installed the meters, followed by parking enforcement who wrote tickets on every car that had already been parked in a spot BEFORE the meters were installed.

Quarters? . The meters in my town only take credit cards.

…or credit cards…