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Just in time for Christmas: City rolls out parking-meter cards

Just like cash, only lighter! Boston is now selling value cards you can use to "feed" meters instead of coins. The city says they're good at meters across town - but not the multi-space ones or the ones that take credit cards - and if you act now, there's a "holiday sale" on the cards. One caveat: Although you can buy them online, you can only recharge their value at City Hall or the ever convenient city tow lot on Frontage Road.

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Although you can buy them online, you can only recharge their value at City Hall or the ever convenient city tow lot on Frontage Road.

How much evidence of incompetence and corruption do we need before Menino is given the boot? From the Mayor who brought us a "no voicemail" policy (and a "no email" policy, too)...Smartcards that can't be recharged via phone or online?! Oh, right, gotta give Doris, Charlie's cousin, who knows Bobby, who helped out With That Thing, something to do other than chew gum and stare at the clock.

You can't even use them at the fancy new multispace meters everyone can't stand: "The Boston Meter Card is not accepted at the city’s multi space meters or meters that currently accept debit/credit card payments."

In Brookline they're ripping them out because people can't stand them...

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Brookline is not removing them. They are revising the user interface.

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In Brookline they're ripping them out because people can't stand them...

Really? They're all over Harvard Street and the Coolidge Corner lots.

What's wrong with them?

I fully agree about the nonsense of needing to visit City Hall during limited hours to recharge the card.

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The recharging business is just plain silly. Have to agree with you on that.

The fact that they don't work with the meters that already take charge cards? Not a big deal, IMO.

So apparently you have to put your card when you park and when you leave. My question is what happens if you exceed the two-hour limit? Do they give you an automatic ticket upon your return?

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"Everybody" cant stand multispace meters?

You lie about them being ripped out?

Are you part of the single-space-meter-coin-collection-union?

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Online or phone charging would certainly be convenient.

But how would it work? Every meter would need a wireless network connection to look up the card's value. That would be very expensive and unreliable.

The only sensible system has the value stored on the card, which means the card has to be physically inserted into whatever machine recharges it.

If they'd planned this properly, not only would the multi-space meters take the cards, but they'd also be able to recharge them.

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The only sensible system has the value stored on the card, which means the card has to be physically inserted into whatever machine recharges it.

Not quite. You don't have to insert a Charlie Card into a fare machine to recharge it -- you just tap the card against the machine.

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Ron, give me a break. The point still stands, since RFID cards have to be physically present within a few inches. And Boston's parking meter cards aren't even RFID cards.

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We should be used to this by now (the other day while at city hall I saw posters advertising an art show and performances on City Hall Plaza - you'd have thunk the mayor made the art and produced the shows himself and then named them after himself based on the size of the fonts) - but I digress - apparently they found something else he can slap his name on (from the Globe article):

>"After becoming comfortable with the meters, the city began developing and testing the parking card, which boasts a swan-boat photo, the city seal, and Menino’s name."

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