Happy Anniversary, Oh Parking Meter?

Exit133 isn’t particularly in the habit of celebrating anniversaries associated with inanimate objects, but with all the conversations about paid on-street parking, this one caught our eye: ‘Happy 75th anniversary, oh parking meter’.

“It was on this day 75 years ago that the first parking meter was installed. And 75 long years later, these coin-gulping contraptions remain as despised as they were when the first 150 of them were put in place in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on July 16, 1935. Concerned that parked cars – that sometimes never moved for weeks – were hurting downtown businesses, city officials were eager for a solution…”

As the City of Tacoma puts the finishing touches on its parking meter rollout, we wonder how much different Tacoma would be if they never removed the parking meters in 1976 to try and compete with the Tacoma Mall – or if the City had never installed them in the first place. Will paystations in our downtown change our city? Will it free up parking for businesses as is hoped?

Link to CNN