Meter madness seizes the city
I’ve met the Fourth Reich and its name is CARTA. Its army of henchmen blanket downtown proper day and night, goose-stepping from car to car, handing out violations for anything its leaders deem suitable—and profitable.
Leave it to drastic financial times for a company to dig deep into its arsenal of doom to play fast-and-hard with indiscretion and fee schedules. Never has price-gouging been more accepted by fearful citizens timidly peering out of windows to make sure their lifeline to the world isn’t yellow tagged, or God forbid, booted. But that’s what you get if you don’t continually pump loose change into parking meters. And the price of admission just got higher.
Less than a month ago you could park at a two-hour meter for 50 cents. However, overnight, the price for the same time limit jumped 300 percent to $1.50. That’s because “meter math” is very different now. Until now, 50 cents was enough to meet the time limit of any meter—whether it was a 20-minute meter (blue head), 30-minute (red head), 60-minute (silver head), 2-hour (green head) or 5-hour (yellow head). The color of the meter head denoted the convenience factor of the individual space’s location. Right out front: blue head. Ten blocks away: yellow head.
Now it seems that all of the meters are being standardized to provide a limited number of minutes per coin, no matter where you park. A nickel will buy you a measly 4 minutes. A dime, 8 minutes. A quarter, 20 minutes. However, you can get an extra 20 minutes on the dollar if you are geeky enough to walk around with a pocket full of those new dollar coins. This generous incentive was likely included so that the meter CARTzi’s (as I like to call them) won’t have to stop writing tickets long enough to collect the bounty as often. Because the more yellow slips they issue, the mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money – haaaaayyyy!
If you should happen to find one on your windshield, the average cost of a ticket is $11. But that’s not where they make the real money. It’s when you innocently wait a couple of days to mail in your payment, and the post office takes a couple of days to deliver it, and the CARTzi’s take another day or two to process it that you now owe $46. That’s right, interest compounded weekly on an unpaid parking ticket is greater than 400 percent. But who’s charging it, and more importantly, who’s benefiting from it?
CARTA is a very slippery organization. Part subsidized by the city and part independent “transportation” company—I think. It’s hard to figure out unless you are on the “inside.” But one thing’s for sure, when the buses can’t haul in the cash, then it’s us drivers that must pay the fare of injustice. And the enemy is playing dirty.
Case in point: The other night I parked in front of the securely padlocked iron gate next to the Sports Barn on Market Street in a space that was marked “passenger loading.” Seeing that it wasn’t a real entrance, and that the Sports Barn was long closed so there wouldn’t be any “passengers loading,” I felt safe parking there. However, when I returned to my car a little later, there was a ticket on my windshield. Time of violation: 9:12 p.m.
Had by chance a busload of nocturnal fitness buffs been stymied by my rogue parking job? Had I kept an elderly or handicapped squash player from convenient access to the locked iron gate of the long-closed sportsplex? Were the CARTzi’s running a second shift? How did this happen?
It’s bad enough that CARTA deems it necessary to ticket our tourists on the weekends (I think we are the only city in the country that enforces meters seven days a week). But to actually hold me accountable for nighttime parking in a loading zone and not ticket the unfed meter space-holder right behind me is beyond ridiculous. It’s not like I was trying to get out of paying for a meter at that time of day. And, I understand the difference between the safety concerns surrounding 24-hour “no parking” zones and the subtle conveniences of “passenger/truck loading” zones. But do they?
Regardless, it’s the first parking ticket that I have ever wanted to challenge in court. But the more I think about it, the more I’m sure that even if I stated my case like a Harvard grad, I’m not the one who’s greasing the wheels of justice (so to speak, of course). That reminds me, I better go feed my meter now (it’s been 20 minutes).
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Carta does not write tickets nor do they get revenue from them. I don't know how you can up with that.. Did you see a bus driver get out and write yours? And who did you send your fine too? I seem to remember the city, not CARTA writes the tickets and the fines are sent to City Court.
And the passenger loading zone? Did you notice the 'curb cut'? The cut that allows wheelchairs to get to and from vehicles mid-block??