Metered Parking: A source of financial gain or drain?

Dear Editor

Will metered parking benefit Samoa and the government in the long run or will it be another monetary burden for the government? 

If the meters themselves can regulate their own activities then maybe, yes, they can be a source of income. 

But all they do is swallow customers’ money and imprint receipts. The other half of the work is done by humans who need to constantly walk around the parking lot to ensure the customers’ receipts are valid. 

But the question is, does L.T.A. have the human resource numbers for this task? I would say no! 

The government will need to hire, train and pay new people to work as meter checkers on a regular basis, and this can be draining on the economy. 

There are other ways metered parking can drain the government financially, for instance, the rezoning and creating of more parking lots, the costs for purchasing and installing parking meters, paints for marking the parking lot spaces, and the costs of papers for receipting. 

All this will incur unnecessary costs for the government. 

Not only that, this will also drain the pockets of drivers who will be subjected to unnecessary court and traffic fines for forgetting to top up the meters while they are running errands. And then there will be problems for the environment due to the mindless littering through discarded parking meter receipts. 

So where does all this money go? 

Does it go to the government indirectly through L.T.A.? Or does it stay with L.T.A.? 

If the latter is the case, does that mean that L.T.A. is the sole beneficiary and does that not encourage uneven development in Samoa as a whole?

Indeed, will metered parking result in money being gained or drained in the long run for Samoa? 

 

Suliana Vailiili Lefaoseu

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