In early April City Council Speaker Christine Quinn described the City Council's argument that unused parking time bought at one meter should still be usable at another meter like so: if "you buy the time, you get to use it." A month later that quip is set to be the rule of the road.
Yesterday the City Council unanimously passed a bill that allows drivers to use any leftover time from a parking spot at another spot (as long as it has the same muni-meter rate). It is a small change, but a nice one in terms of common sense. "People who are running errands should be able to buy time once and use that time for any spot with the same meter rate. At the end of the day, this is the driver’s money we are talking about," Councilman James Vacca, who chairs the Transportation Committee, said after the vote.
Long term, however, we can imagine one hiccup to this new, and much appreciated, rule. If the city does move forward with privatizing parking meters we have a hunch that whatever company buys in won't like the idea of letting drivers keep their minutes one bit.
