Scheme or Scam? Or Both?

 

It's not dumb enough that anyone standing in front of or interacting with one of the city's $10,000 sidewalk parking kiosks has no way of knowing what hours and days paid parking is in effect. No, it gets dumber than that, thanks to HPD Parking Captain David Miller. (Though, I imagine, he would deny being in charge of decorating, maintaining or programming the kiosks, saying instead, "that's someone else's responsibility, not mine."  Miller is glad to give his monthly parking report to the SAFETY Committee with data from the Parking Bureau that is supposedly run by someone else, but he'll take no responsibility for anything that goes wrong with the Parking Bureau's GREAT new paid parking scheme.) 

Yesterday afternoon at 4:00, one hour before paid parking was to end for the day (I live here, I know what the hours are!), I decided to see how much money one parking kiosk would accept for a parking space, as well as how many hours of paid parking that would translate into.   Of course, the machine should have only offered me a maximum of one hour, at a cost of 50 cents, because for 6 days of the week paid parking ends at 5:00 (though no kiosks offer that information).  But this is Hudson, where the simplest of things are often so darn complicated.

When the kiosk's screen offered me the option to add more than a half hour of time, I just kept hitting the key to make that happen. One hour.  Hour and a half.  Two hours.  Two and a half hours.  Three.  Four.  Five hours.  I hit that key, let's see, I guess 30 times before my time for a parking space was maxed out!  It was tiring!  With one hour left to pay for a parking space on a Friday afternoon (in the real world), the machine was okay with me, or anyone, paying $7.50 for 15 hours of parking with cash or a credit card.  The screen told me that my paid time in an on-street parking space would be finished the following day (today) at 7 am, 2 hours before paid parking resumes for the day.  Had I put 30 quarters in the slot or offered my credit card, that $10,000 parking kiosk would have printed out a receipt for me showing that I could safely leave my car in an on-street parking space for the next 15 hours without the risk of being ticketed, the latter14 of them when paid parking is not in effect and no "meter violation" tickets are issued. (Of course, a parking receipt from a kiosk won't prevent HPD from issuing your car a $15 overnight wrong side parking ticket!)  In other words, our $10,000 kiosks are more than happy to rip people off.  The city's latest high-tech solution to our non-existent parking woes peddle in misinformation, disinformation, uninformation, and obfuscation, all of it programmed (or not) by the Hudson Police Department. 

This simply shouldn't be happening.  No one should 
ever be able to pay for 15 hours of parking.  Or 14. Or...

What happened to the two-hour parking limit that is in our code?

For at least the past three Sundays (and probably since they showed up months ago), all 15 of the downtown parking kiosks have been ready to accept money on Sundays from unsuspecting visitors to Hudson (and certain residents, I suppose) who are unfamiliar with our very new local parking rules, regulations and schemes.

But it gets better, if you can believe it.

This morning, after buying CORN (!!!!) and other necessities at the farmers market, I decide to see how well prepared our $10,000 kiosks were for another busy Saturday on Warren Street.  The first kiosk I checked -- nearest City Hall -- would not allow me or anyone to pay for parking.  The screen immediately announced:  PARKING PERMITS NOT AVAILABLE.  I'm not sure how best to describe that situation.  Out of service?  Unavailable?  Malfunctioning?  How about just BROKEN?  Yes, I like BROKEN.  Broken again!

I checked four more $10,000 kiosks and they were all BROKEN in the same fashion.  This included the lonely kiosk located on -- for some f'd up reason -- the Columbia Street sidewalk outside the City Hall parking lot, the side of the lot that no one parking in the lot exits from on foot.

So, if all of our $10,000 parking kiosks are broken, shouldn't parking enforcers stop issuing parking tickets?  If one or both of the kiosks in the 500 block of Warren are BROKEN, shouldn't enforcers cease issuing tickets in that block?  If the parking app were to be unavailable to everyone but the kiosks continued to work, shouldn't enforcers cease issuing tickets until the app is back up and available?  Of course they should!  Well, were any parking enforcers issuing parking tickets this morning when none of the parking kiosks were able to accept money and allow people to park downtown?  Of course they were out issuing parking tickets!  Why should a little thing like fifteen BROKEN $10,000 parking kiosks stop HPD from issuing ten-dollar parking tickets?  It's not like there's anything wrong with that.  Just get used to it already! 

If you are confused and disappointed, perhaps even concerned, maybe Parking Captain Miller will explain things at next month's meeting of the so-called SAFETY Committee.  But, if I were you, I wouldn't count on it!