In the good old days in Boulder, you could slide into a parking spot downtown and cross your fingers as you approached the meter. Sometimes, by which I mean quite often, you could score a good fifteen or more minutes, courtesy of the last person who parked there. On occasion, the city would send volunteer goodwill ambassadors (a term I’m making up in the absence of knowing their real titles) around the streets with tokens that they could plunk into a meter that was about to expire. The note they left on the windshield said something like, “Why don’t you take the fifteen dollars we just saved you in parking tickets and put it back into the Boulder economy?” Again, I’m taking some liberties with the details, but you get the idea.

But lately, the city has installed the new-fangled kiosks that print a receipt that you put on the dash of your car. When you’re done with your spot, you drive off, leaving the next person to fend for himself. On the upside, you can pay for your parking with your credit card at one of the many stations along the sidewalks, and since your ticket also serves as a receipt, it makes life easier come tax time.  This is a big bonus to the person (like me) who never ever carries coins on her person.  On the downside, there’s no way to pull into a slot with time on the meter; unless someone gives you their parking stub with time on it, there’s no more free parking. And I guess to the person (like my husband) who finds poking buttons on a machine fussier than putting coins into a machine, it might annoy you.

But the times are a-changin’ even in Boulder, and if you ever find yourself nostalgic for the good old days, you can still find a few of the old-timey meters with a maximum limit of 30 minutes in front of the downtown post office at 13th and Walnut.

Photo by Flickr–Creative Commons, by Robin_Gallagher