Sign of The Times

     Parking meters in the "Loop" in Chicago now costs $5.

     $5 an hour.

     It was already the most expensive meter parking in America, so I suppose Chicago drivers were already used to it.

     One of the niceties of moving from Birmingham to Montgomery a decade ago was being able to a) find a parking spot downtown in the middle of the day and b) be able to toss a nickle or dime into the meter to cover the time it took to run into a bank.

     As I've blogged about before, the first meters installed in Alabama, in Mobile, were the target of vigilantes (We dare defend our rights!) who used axes to take them out, according to a 1950's Reader's Digest article, and The Wall Street Journal reported a major court battle over meters was fought in the Alabama Courts:

 ...in 1937, the Alabama Supreme Court declared Birmingham's parking meters to be an unauthorized exercise of the city's taxing power, and ordered them removed. Other state courts allowed parking meters, but only if their primary purpose was to regulate traffic, not to raise revenue, a distinction that quickly faded in the lean days of the Depression."

     When the meters were installed in Paris, the good citizens of that city burned the building where the traffic authority was located. Or so says a widespread reference online...which I also have not been able to track down.

      Two friends, former Alabamians, now live in Chicago---former Birmingham News cartoonist Scott Stantis and Former Birmingham Radio and TV journalist Steve Sanders. Maybe we should take up a collection?