So, This Is What It's Come To? "Classic" Parking?

I don't know which part of this recent post on our Hudson Police Department's Fakebook page is worthy of the most criticism.  But I'll try.

First, there's the picture.  I'm thinking that our police chief or captain thought that a photo of a few parked cars on Warren from Nolita's fenced terrace would be really, um... artsy?  Persuasive?  Self-explanatory?  Comical?  Is it possible that whoever took the shot couldn't have waited until after they finished their coffee and muffin to get a shot from the sidewalk instead?  Did inspiration strike after a few sips of coffee and the photo just had to be taken?  (Oh, to have been sitting nearby when it was taken!)

Then there's just the whole idea of buying a monthly fucking parking "subscription" to save on the service fees that just about everyone in town is griping about and making fun of.  ParkMobile Go!  Hoo-fuckin'-rah!  Sign me up.  Take my credit card information and do whatever you want with it.  Want my social security number as well?  How about my sexual preference?

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall at the meeting of ParkMobile executives when they decided on offering the ParkMobile Go subscription service.  "Well, now that we have a new ParkMobile service, what are we going to call the original service that doesn't include the subscription, the one that still includes the services fees?  We never had to call it anything, since it was the only service we offered.  Does anyone have any suggestions?"

"How about ParkMobile Classic, boss?  Doesn't that have a nice ring to it?  People love classic things.  It sounds classy!"

"It sure does, Tom, and I love it.  ParkMobile Classic it is!  Give that man a raise!"

What's next from HPD and their parking app company?  A subscription service so you don't ever have to use the fucking app, scan a parking sign 9 feet above the sidewalk with your phone or tap your credit card on a kiosk to pay to park in downtown Hudson?  Let's call it ParkMobile Scam You Very Much!   Just give us your fucking money!

"(PS, not an ad... just passing along helpful info)"!  It's all so creepy.  And to think our police department is spending time dealing with, thinking about and writing this stuff.  What were Parking Captain David Miller, Chief Mishanda Franklin and Clerk Doreen Danforth doing a year ago before HPD "took over parking"?  Twiddling their thumbs?  Hanging out at Nolita's?  Or making Hudson safer?

From Wikipedia:  In July of 2021, ParkMobile suffered a cybersecurity incident "linked to a vulnerability in a third-party software," potentially exposing users' email addresses, phone number and license plate numbers.

Henry Haddad and his "safety committee" are 
all for visitors standing in the street staring at 
their phones with no awareness of their immediate
surroundings, including nearby moving vehicles.

There's a whole lot to ridicule and criticize about the city's new approach to paid downtown parking.  One of the big ones for me is the fact that HPD parking enforcers and visitors to Hudson are spending far too much walking in and standing in the street, either trying to issue tickets or paying for a space so as not to get a ticket.  It's stupid, dangerous and careless.  And WRONG!

Parking Captain David Miller is forcing his 
enforcers to spend more time in the street and 
less time on the sideWALK!

A few Saturdays ago on North 7th Street, I spoke with a friendly parking enforcer who paused between scanning license plates.  It was a busy day on Warren; parking spaces were a hot commodity.  One thing led to another, and after glancing at his handheld ticket machine, he told me that he had already scanned 382 license plates.  Nearly 400 plates scanned in less than 4 hours.  I failed to ask him how many tickets he had issued.

Enforcers cannot scan license plates from the sidewalk.  That was the beauty of parking meters -- they kept enforcers with their feet and bodies on the sidewalk most of the time, not in the street and not stepping off of and onto the curb constantly.

Where's the sign, Waldo?  There isn't one!
Ha ha, the jokes on you, fool!  Pay up!

Last Saturday, also in the early afternoon with visitors everywhere, while pedaling up the 200 block of Warren, I noticed that there wasn't one available parking space along the entire south side of the street.  I counted the parked cars: 28.  I then counted how many had a parking ticket on them: 11.  40 percent of the parked cars had been ticketed!  No wonder Parking Captain Miller keeps telling the SAFETY Committee at their monthly meetings that his paid parking scheme is going so wonderfully and the parking revenue is flowing in like never before!  (Where does all that revenue wind up, anyway?)

When I was a Hudson parking enforcer for a short spell 12 years ago, if one side of a block of Warren was full of parked cars (never below 3rd Street, of course, where no meters existed) on a Saturday or Sunday, I would expect to ticket 3 or 4 of them at most.  Never even 7, and certainly not 11!  When parking meters were the only means of payment, any enforcer that ticketed even 30 percent of parked cars would have immediately known that one of two things was wrong.  Either several of the parking meters were malfunctioning or somehow drivers were not getting the idea that they had to pay for their parking space.  Well, that first option is no longer an available explanation for ticketing so many parked cars in one block.  It's clear that the message about how to pay for parking isn't getting through to people parking downtown, especially those that are visiting for the first time (of which there are always many on weekends).  

OUR PARKING METERS DID NOT REQUIRE SIGNS!!!!  EACH PARKING SPACE HAD A METER THAT NO ONE COULD FAIL TO SEE AND TO QUICKLY AND EASILY USE TO PAY FOR THEIR PARKING SPACE!  THERE WERE NO SERVICE FEES INVOLVED.  NO NEED FOR A PAID PARKING "SUBSCRIPTION" TO SAVE A FEW DOLLARS ON PARKING.  PUT A QUARTER IN THE METER AND GET ON WITH YOUR DAY!  WELCOME TO HUDSON, GO SPEND YOUR MONEY LOCALLY!  THERE'S NO NEED FOR YOU TO GIVE ANY OF IT TO A PARKING APP COMPANY THAT HAS JUST ONE GOAL IN MIND:  TO GET AS MUCH MONEY FROM YOU AS POSSIBLE.

This meter pole should have been removed at
least one month ago.  CLASSIC HUDSON!