Comments about ‘Salt Lake City may upgrade to high-tech parking meters’

Here's a better idea.

The parking meters are turned off in December to encourage Christmas shopping. Why not turn them off permanently to encourage shopping all year round?

That will save the city money in meters and enforcement, and raise the income of the city via commerce.

Meters are oppressive and are antithetical to a vibrant Downtown. They should be eliminated altogether. Utahns pay enough taxes already.

2-hour meter zones Downtown should be converted to standard 2-hour, meterless parking zones (with the green signs). Enforcement would continue as it eagerly does now in the existing 2-hour meterless zones.

What a farce and waste of money this is. Who is going to enforce the parking meter violations? The same people they have now driving around ticketing cars. Don't see any savings, but I do see a meter company making a lot as they scam the government with more gadgets that breakdown and won't work.

It also seems logical that these meters will have a camera incorporated to chase down meter violators. Smile, your meter is watching you.

Parking in SLC is a joke anyway and meters only deter people from shopping downtown, and they wonder why people don't and won't shop there. The only reason to go downtown is that's where all the government offices are, state and federal. And if anyone can get through a government office in less that 2 hours is very lucky.

Then what about people who don't use credit cards or cell phones? Convenience is an inconvenience.

Doesn't this make people in Utah question its State County, and Local governments. Come on people, are you going to standby to pay for any parking spot. It's another frikin tax your paying directly, you paid to have the streets made, those very same parking spots are on those very streets you pay every year to be torn up and repaved whether they need it, or not. People start getting involved with your governemnts, Force them to budget like you do, unless you don't no how, but thats another issue, they need to figure out real salaries, not fantasy world salaries, they need to fix things only when they need to be fixed (ROADS), They need to reassess their prisons, and who really needs to be there, including jails. They need to do what the people want, not what they want. Enough with paying for their agendas. Make it work without more money from working citizens, they pay enough.

It doesn't look like the meters take credit cards. The whole problem with meters is that you have to have change.
I find myself digging in my golf bag for change for the meter.

Better idea. Do away with parking meters period. Then people might actually want to go to SLC.

If the parking meters are eliminated downtown, the downtown office workers will love it. Free parking all day!

Too bad for shoppers. The parking places will fill before 7am and employees will not leave an empty slot until late afternoon.

Tokens given out by shops for purchases is the simplest most cost effective solution.

Meter maids should just be crusing with license plate recognition cameras. This technology already exists and is cheap and efficient.

The scofflaws will rapidly be eliminated or be picking up their cars at an impound lot.

last time my wife park there and paid the meter but all of sudden we got the ticket because we didn't have the plate in the front. That was the last time we park in SLC. Two hours free zone should work and do away with this fancy meter high price!

Is this really the best use of city funds? The highest priority for over $7MM? We really need to get priorities set around here so the politicians don'dt idle away their time looking for places to gouge taxpayers further. This is just another tax hike disguises as a service.

to "american citizen": you are spot on correct. I work downtown and watch office workers feeding meters all day long. Make them free and they will snap up every last parking spot available, and you will have absolutely NO visitors coming to our "vibrant" downtown. To "botdriver": you need to get a clue. We are talking about parking here, not about your off-topic personal agendas.

spend spend spend I thought that our budget was in trouble What is the real story

If downtown wants my business, they will end this sillyness. I haven't been there for years OR plugged the existing meters, so I guess nothing will change for me.

So go ahead, waste some more on meters, and then puzzle for a few more years about why urban sprawl occurs in the outlying areas. Puzzle (and flounder) on....

When is Ralph Becker up for election again. Even though I don't live in Salk Lake I can still donate to his opponent. Specially since I like to hang out in Salt Lake.

Maybe Becker's opponent will need some volunteers.

A lot of people commenting on here don't even bother reading the article. The new meters sound like a great idea--I've used them in other cities and have used my credit card when change was not available, very easy. By the way, the meters are free after 6 pm and free on weekends. Do your shopping then if you're too cheap to pay a dollar for a couple hours during the day.

I for one would visit downtown more often with these new meters. I am as close to using plastic only as I can get and rarely have enough coins to feed the meters. While I'd prefer a two-hour non-metered parking spot, if the only change that will happen is whether to keep status quo or replace meters, I'd say go and replace the meters.

To jp3:

We read the article, and are unhappy that SLC has found another way to get money from those who want to frequent downtown. It is simply another tax to use public resources that we have already paid for with our taxes! Anytime you read that "more revenue" will result from spending such and such, you can count on the fact that your local reps have just raised taxes on someone - and probably you!

Salt Lake City can't upgrade to high-tech parking meters, that would cost money, they are tight wads in that State, a Red State, and want to pinch that penny. in Utah there are still those who wish to live in their Utah America 1776.... "WITH"...

Little to no taxes,
no public water,
no public sewer,
no healthcare,
no electricity,
no phones,
no radios,
no T.V., (all FCC controlled)
no police,
no fire dept.,
no schools,
no roads,
no banks,
no FDA to inspect your home-grown - non-subsidized food,
no Day-Light-Savings,
no building codes,
not even a STOP sign to tell you what to do.

Just like it was in 1776.

Now, come to your senses and get over it.

I am sure the meters are great but I have to agree with the people that say, Why even have them? I grew up in California and our downtown was starting to go downhill. The city counsel decided to do something to revive it and the first thing they did was get rid of the meters and all paid parking. They also added free off street parking. All the stores worked at cleaning up and the city added flowers etc to the main streets. Pretty soon downtown became the place to shop and became a vibrent shopping area. The restaurants started doing great lunch and dinner business and even today (40 years later) the downtown is much busier than the malls. The increased sales tax revenue far exceeds anything the meters made.

My point is; clean and beautify downtown, provide lots of easy free parking and people will come. I avoid downtown SLC because of the parking problems.

Oh gosh, thanks to pork n earmarks from Hatch and Bennett officials of Utah's capital city will finally be on the verge of signing off on replacing more than 2,000 coin-operated parking meters throughout the city in the dessert and salt flats?.
The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies - all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. Their number one strategy was to repeat discredited arguments.

Save the money, and ride bicycles, or use your covered wagons or a horse n buggy.

@DEW: "last time my wife park there and paid the meter but all of sudden we got the ticket because we didn't have the plate in the front."

And who's fault is that? Utah law requires vehicles registered in Utah to have a plate on the front and back. If you didn't have a plate on the front and you got a ticket - then you are the only one to blame!