I read Parking Today from cover to cover every month because I’m the magazine’s proofreader. We have a terrific team putting together the publication every month, and I enjoy my part of the process.
Lately, I’ve noticed some familiar themes: accommodating electric vehicles with parking and infrastructure; privacy for those who use parking apps; and why everybody out there hates the parking industry.
I’m waiting on supply and demand to settle the electric vehicle situation. Any day now, somebody will figure out how to power up EVs quickly and affordably, and then anybody who had reservations about them will get in line to buy one. How much EVs will really help our pollution problems is another equation.
Concerning privacy and parking apps – who are we kidding? Use Facebook or talk to Alexa and your details are already out there and easy to obtain. A parking app won’t do any more harm than what’s already been done.
Finally, and sorry for the cross talk, but people don’t hate the parking industry. People are oblivious or indifferent to its existence, and they don’t know what it does or who’s part of it.
Reasonable people don’t hate anonymous and undefined entities – they get impatient, they hate to be inconvenienced, penalized unfairly, and not knowing the rules.
My family went to Los Angeles for lunch one day during the break between Christmas and New Year’s. I’d read about this amazing bakery, so we made the drive to try it out. After 50 minutes of freeway traffic and city streets thick with stoplights, we arrived
Around the block once and we found a parking spot. At the meter with our quarters, we faced a foggy window and no way to discern cost, time limit or any other pertinent detail. We dropped in our quarters and hoped for the best.
We live in a humid climate and we understand that parking meters sit outside all day, every day, in every season, for years. I think it’s amazing these devices last more than six months.
We didn’t hate the parking industry or the city or the meter’s maker – we just hated the unknown. Was it OK to leave our car? Had we paid enough? Would we, despite our best efforts, get a ticket? Who could we speak with about our concerns? All unknowns.
I tell people I work for a parking magazine, and they don’t get it until I list all the ways parking fits into their lives: regulations, equipment, structures, enforcement, municipalities, universities, airports, and so on.
It’s time to find a way to introduce to the world the enormous and diverse collection of people, resources, and services that make up the Parking Industry.
