Downtown parking meters need tweaks

I spend a bit of time downtown working with clients and have been making an effort to use the new parking system as an advocate of technology. I have mixed reviews with the new system.

I estimate that in my use of the system (about 15 times during the last 1 1/2 weeks) that 90 percent of the time there is no receipt printed. I have received a receipt only twice since the system was installed. This makes it impossible to add time to my meter and makes me a bit concerned this is by design. It is not always possible to be back to the meter between client meetings, thus wasting money and increasing my cost of doing business. Also, many times the card readers do not work, so I have abandoned use of them already. On Jan. 20, I tried to use a machine, but because of the extreme cold, the machine's LCD was not functioning. So this one was a loss for the city.

It seems to be that if the city spent all this money for technology to save money, it should be able to keep the paper in the machines to issue receipts and allow people to add time versus plugging the meter to avoid the

$7 ticket.

It is time to re-access how the plan is working and tweak it to make sure the system is easy to use and effective.

Sean Taylor

Center Point