Ottawa’s Parking Meter Pirates: Bad parking eXperience
My native city of Ottawa, Canada has a “take no prisoners” approach to parking meters. They have electronic meters with LCD displays installed throughout the city. The BIG problem is when the meter malfunctions, there’s no message – you drop your looney in (96 cents USD) and nothing happens… This month alone I’ve lost $6 to malfunctionning meters… arg! It’s just an annoyance, it’s not the money. What do you do – find another spot? What if you don’t have change left? Do you stand on the curb for a month waiting for the $2.50 refund check from the city??
They empty the darn things evey day. Why not check the software too? I sure hope the meter software isn’t a Microsoft product – my meter isn’t Vista ready!
C’mon Ottawa, get with it!! Tourists? Don’t park!!!!
Hi Mitch, interesting Post.
A few years back I helped to audit the City of Ottawa’s Capital budget. One of the cooler titled capital projects at the time was “Parking Meter Strategic Technology Update” this is true!!
At the time the city was replacing all of the mechanical parking meters (regardless of wether they needed to be replaced) to update them with the latest technology. both performed the same function only one was mechanical and the other (newer) one electronic.
I questioned the wisdom of this program at the time. A side note; when auditing city projects the word “strategic” became a red flag.
cheers,
Great story Ian!
The potential value to the user (parker) experience is huge. But the city misses this opportunity – for example, when no parking is allowed in rush hour the meters should NOT take your money… makes me wonder… you get a parking ticket even though you dropped a toonie to park there. Technically the parking “contract” would be void – so despite the $50 ticket you should get a $2 refund! Strategic indeed!!
well the city responded – I have no idea what they’re talking about… They seem to think that I actually CARE about whether they fixed the meter 5 days later. No sign of my 2 buck either!
Good Morning,
The malfunctioning parking meter # 2104 will be checked and repaired as necessary. Please contact the City at 311 after 5 business days have elapsed, to be advised of the outcome of the meter service check. Please use Reference # 2007-207940. Thank you for advising us of the problems you experienced with this meter.
L.Stanford
Parking Operations