New Age Parking Meters in Harvard Square

I did a double take when I spotted this new age parking meter in Harvard Square on Church Street. It’s actually a “pay station” that has replaced all the meters on the block. The City of Cambridge Traffic and Parking Department calls it a “Pay and Display Meter” – actually for some reason they call it “Luke”.  Beats me.

Harvard Square visitors will park their car at one of the now meter-less parking spaces and purchase parking at the pay station which takes quarters or credit cards (Visa or Mastercard). The machine spits out a paper receipt which needs to posted on your dash.

For now these new parking meter substitutes are on Church Street and in three City of Cambridge parking lots though there are plans to make the change elsewhere in the city in the future. Benefits of this sort of system, similar to ones installed in Boston on Newbury Street, include increased revenues and reduced time spent by city workers collecting money from the meters.

While I’m a bit horrified at the idea of parking meter charges ending up on credit cards, the biggest drawback from drivers, or I should say parkers’, perspective seems to be that the small joy of scoring a parking meter with time left on it is no longer a possibility. But simply scoring a parking space in the heart of Harvard Square should be thrill enough.

  

SEARCH FOR HOMES IN HARVARD SQUARE 

 

Categories: Everything Else
Tags: Harvard Square

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 12th, 2009 at 10:10 pm and is filed under Everything Else. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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