The parking garage payment system was stupid from the start. 

They improved it a bit, but the exit gate kept being broken. Unlike what they're saying in the newspaper, I don't think it was because people wouldn't pay but because they couldn't figure out the way to Get Out.

 

They've gone to some kind of scanning license plate, pay upon leaving, credit card only system.

 

Also extremely dumb. 

 

I predict continued broken gates until they build a wall. Very friendly. 

 

Was paying the guys to go around and check by hand really so onerous?

 

Get this: the original system was to pick up a ticket upon entering. To leave, you had to go the the exact opposite corner of the garage, to a room that even I didn't know existed, redeem it there. 

 

You then had to go back to your car (which could levels away) and present the redemption at the gate. 

 

For the first few months, every time I parked I'd see some poor, lost soul wandering around with a ticket in hand. I'd give them quick directions, and wonder why the designers hadn't put the redemption station near the exit. 

 

Then, months later, they put finally put the redemption station near the exit. But the exit gate was almost never down, because people STILL couldn't figure it out and would break the gate just to get out. Every night upon leaving I feared I get behind some poor lost soul who was stuck behind the gate, cars piled up behind them, and so on. It would have been a lot worse, but the gate was always broken.

 

There were no gates the entire month of December, for instance. Automation is a great savings, eh?

 

Meanwhile, we still have parking people walking around downtown giving tickets who could easily cover the garage.

 

God help us from bureaucratic experts who are in fact idiots. An "expert" who is truly an expert is a rare godsend. An "expert" without real life common sense are numerous and a pox upon all us.