ABSTRACT
Parking is presented as an apolitical transport planning concern, but parking sparks strong emotions, is intensely territorial, and is therefore prone to populism. A machine was reliable and consistent and hard to argue with the parking meter needed to be invented. The first automatic parking meter resulted from a design competition initiated by a newspaper owner, Mr. Carl C. Magee, who sponsored a public contest for a device to manage parking time. To trial the positive effect of the parking meter, they were placed on one side of the street, leaving other side free of meters. The contrast was immediately notable, demonstrating ability of parking meters to regularly turn over parking on the busy Main Street. Private parking providers will organize as an interest group and lobby various levels of government for the policies that serve their interests. A critical challenge for public and private parking providers will be to work around and with these new technologies and changing economies.
