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Friday, May 12, 2006

Portland’s Courteous Drivers

Posted by on May 12 at 14:32 PM

So Portland has the same new parking meters that we have in Seattle—actually, Portland had them before we got ‘em. You put in your dough, the meter/kiosk spits out a sticker, which affix to the inside of your car window facing the sidewalk. Or the street. Or something.

Anyway, walking around Portland today I noticed that drivers removing the stickers from their cars and slapping them on telephone poles and occasionally on the parking meters themselves, leaving their stickers—and any unused time that might be on them—for the next driver who comes along. I haven’t seen anyone do this in Seattle, but I think it’s a behavior we should adopt.

Parking.jpg

In other Portland news, you can still smoke in bars and clubs down here—and it fucking blows.

In national news, QWest—which refused to cooperate with the Bush administrations illegal spying—explained why today. From the NYT:

The telecommunications company Qwest turned down requests by the National Security Agency for private telephone records because it concluded that doing so would violate federal privacy laws, a lawyer for the telephone company’s former chief executive said today.

In a statement released this morning, the lawyer said that the former chief executive, Joseph N. Nacchio, made the decision after asking whether “a warrant or other legal process had been secured in support of that request.”

God bless QWest.


CommentsRSS icon

People do this in Seattle all the time, seek and ye shall find...

and sue the pants off the other telcos.

support the EFF:

http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/att/

Dan,


Apparently in your hometown Microsoft is doing all kinds of nasty stuff with National Security.


How about sending someone to Microsoft to make them talk about how they're helping to create a totalitarian spy state?

Who the hell ever has more than a couple of minutes left over on these parking things anyhow? I doubt these leftovers are ever used. And it ain't a rock poster, therefore it's just littering.

I don't know about Portland, but at least in Seattle, those stickers are reusable, so you run between downtown and CapHill and not have to waste time/coinage trying to get parking stickers (assuming you have any time left).

A--I don't think they're supposed to be reusable--they have location codes on them. But nobody looks, so they're defacto reusable. I really hate it when I go to use the machine at the end of the day, and because there's less than $2 worth of time left, I can't use my credit card.

On the other news, I've always hated Qwest. until this news story broke. now i'll put up w/their shitty service.

Nice. Here in SF, the MUNI passes (monthly bus pass) are valid until the 3rd of the following month, so I try and do the same thing by leaving them at the underground station entrances with a few days left on'em (wait until the 3rd and you've got to wait in line about 45 minutes for one).

"and it fucking blows."

What's that mean? Good? or Bad?
(I am over 35 and don't live on Cap Hill.)

When an SDOT representative spoke at a community council meeting a couple years ago before the machines were installed, she explained that the stickers are good for any location, but non-transferable. You're allowed to buy one at a given location, then if there's time left on it, use it again to park elsewhere. You're not allowed to give it to someone else or leave it for others.

Phil, you're so right! I just checked on SDOTs website. Learn something new...

Keep in mind: the generous act of using coins to refill other strangers' parking meters is actually illegal.

Dan, I actually profited from a generous Seattle driver who did just this. Not sure if the driver was a slog reader, but I was very appreciative!

Honestly, I personally think that anything that encourages people to walk or take public transit over driving, is a good thing. Regardless of the method, people need to stop driving everywhere.

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