I notice every time I’m operating a vehicle in and around Downtown Reno that Reno is still using the old-style parking meters that require the driver to feed in an unending stream of coins in order to stave off parking tickets.
| Traditional Parking Meter | Image: Nate Enyedi |
Occasionally I notice in the news that the parking rates are going up in Reno, and whenever I see news items like that I hope that I will find that Reno is also planning to install newer parking meters that a lot of cities have had for a while now. But so far I haven’t seen an indication that Reno is planning to update its parking meters.
| A More Modern Parking Meter |
The modern parking meters take credit cards, bills, and coins, and they allow the driver at the time of purchase to select an amount of parking time. The machines then print out a ticket with its own adhesive that the driver puts on the car window. The sticker is usually good anywhere in the city with a meter for the amount of time originally purchased, even if the car is moved. One parking meter can serve an entire block.
Parking meters become considerably less annoying, and slightly higher parking rates the same, when keeping one’s car parked on the street stops being a battle on two fronts (coin and machine), and instead turns into a routine, predictable transaction. Small changes in how people interact with the urban landscape can make a big difference in the long run, not to mention the efficiency that could be gained from having less machines to service.
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