Bethesda Library Parking

So my wife goes to the Bethesda (Maryland) library to return some books.  The library is situated close to the downtown area, so parking is at a premium.  The library used to have parking meters in place, with payment required during library hours. 

For some reason they replaced this conventional system with a “new” system that requires patrons to do the following:

1. Park the car
2. Make note of the parking space number
3. Walk into the library, key the number into a machine which produces a ticket good for two hours (free of charge)

The process for handing out tickets is as follows:

1. The meter enforcer (I don’t think you’re allowed to say “meter maid” anymore) periodically goes to the machine and prints out a list of all parking spots that are reserved.
2. He/she then trudges out to the parking lot, walks around, and writes tickets for any cars that are not on the list

Anyone with half a brain can see the hole in this system - if you park your car and walk into the library after the meter enforcer has printed the list, you’re dead meat.  Plus the fact that anyone can park there free of charge for two hours is just insane.  I would have loved to be in the requirements sessions when they came up with this bright idea.

And no, my wife is not going to pay the fine.

This entry was posted on 12. May 2008 at 13:19 and is filed under Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.