A Brief History of Paid Parking
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Whether you reside in the city or just visit it occasionally, chances are you’ve experienced the benefits and drawbacks of paid parking. Discover when paid parking meters first came on the scene in the U.S. and the context that forged this invention.
Origin of the parking meter
Per JSTOR Daily’s Livia Gershon, the history of paid parking first started in 1935 in Oklahoma City, which installed the world’s first parking meter. Dubbed the “Park-O-Meter,” the device was “hailed as the greatest traffic invention since the stoplight,” according to reporter William H. Orrick Jr. with the California Law Review.
Inventor of the parking meter
Carl C. Magee gets the credit for introducing the parking meter here in the U.S. Originally from New Mexico, he relocated to Oklahoma City in 1927, where he established the Oklahoma News. During this period, Oklahoma City started to experience the same dilemma as other growing urban hubs — a lack of public parking in the downtown business district. Magee’s proposed solution came in the form of the Park-O-Meter. The city installed it on the southeast corner of what was then First Street and Robinson Avenue.
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Mixed reactions
In the early days of the parking meter, drivers had the same frustrations that many of us modern drivers have with them today. Some claimed the gadgets were just a money-making scheme for the cities that installed them. According to Gershon, some residents even sued their cities over parking charges they thought were unfair. Usually, the local governments won these cases, since courts deemed the parking meters legitimate ways of regulating parking. City officials justified parking meters as ways to help reduce urban traffic by limiting the number of cars allowed to park on the side of the street.
Rumors of electronic alternatives
Today, a handful of U.S. cities are experimenting with more high-tech alternatives to conventional parking meters. EasyPark is just one of the systems that cities like Austin, Texas, and Dover, New Hampshire, are testing. But, even if the format of paid parking changes, it definitely seems like this practice is here to stay.
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News Sources: JSTOR Daily, History.com
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