The People’s Republic of Brookline is all aTwitter over the new multispace parking meters that recently replaced single-space meters around town.
From Sunday’s Boston Globe:
Outcry over new parking meters
An outcry against the multispace parking meters that replaced hundreds of single-space meters in Brookline last year has convinced Town Administrator Mel Kleckner that it’s time for the town to reverse course.
Kleckner is proposing a plan to remove almost all of the multispace meters that were installed along Brookline streets at the beginning of 2011 at a cost of more than $1 million. Hired by the town in the fall of 2010, Kleckner said he’s been dealing with complaints about the multispace meter system through most of his tenure.
“I just don’t think it’s convenient enough, and for whatever reason it has really created a problem,” said Kleckner. “It’s a big problem. I think it makes the town look bad.”
Actually, this is what makes the town look bad:
Residents have complained that the meters are confusing, slow, and are particularly burdensome for older drivers, who must walk from their parked car to the multispace meter, print a parking receipt, and return to the vehicle to put the slip in the window, even in inclement weather.
Seriously? This is lamer than Chester on Gunsmoke.
Not to mention flushing $1 million down the municipal toilet.
Shit.
(Full disclosure: The hardworking staff is a Brookline taxpayer.)
Campaign Outsider 
Imagine your 80 year old grandmother walking back and forth to the kiosk in the snow to pick up her prescriptions.
And how many people do you know, jerri, that would put money in a parking meter in the snow anyway?
Wouldn’t that same grandmother have to walk in the snow to feed the old meters (meters that were buried in that snow two years ago)? Now imagine your grandmother not getting a ticket because the stub from the kiosk informed the cops that she still had plenty of time on the meter. If the meter seized up and broke down, as the old meters tended to, poor grandma would have had to pay much more for her day of shopping. I’m just trying to look out for grandma. Damn the man, keep the kiosks!
If an 80 year old has trouble walking back and forth to the kiosk in the show, should they even be driving in the first place?
If those old geezers won’t walk al little to get to a meter, let them stay home. Old people are so stupid. And the cripples are even worse! Stop blocking progress, dammit!
There’s probably a few 80 year old grandmothers in Brookline who could easily foot the bill for the $1 million reversal; if it matters so much to them, let them pay for it.
Those have the chauffeur put the money in the meter for them.
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