It’s hard to believe, but there are still a few old-fashioned, single-space parking meters on city streets, and ignoring them can get you a ticket.

A lot of people who drive are too young to remember a time when paying for parking involved fishing for coins in pockets or purses to feed a meter that stood on a pole next to the parking spot.

A small display screen would show the total of the coins fed into the meter, along with the amount of time paid for, as long as the meter was working, which wasn’t always the case.

They were notorious for eating money but failing to show the time paid for, forcing drivers to scribble notes that were placed under wiper blades or on dashboards, begging for mercy from parking enforcement.

All that changed about 20 years ago, when the Toronto Parking Authority (TPA) switched to space-age, pay-and-display machines that dispense tickets that must be placed on dashboards to show the time paid for.

The pay-and-display dispensers are so state-of-the-art that drivers can pay for parking with a credit card. Wow! To the moon, Alice. Bang, zoom!

So it was a surprise to get a note recently from Ron Levy, saying he came across one of the old-fashioned meters on the east side of Parliament Street, between Adelaide and Richmond Streets.

Levy described it as a “lone and forgotten meter … with its LED screen still operating,” because he, like most people, thought the old meters had all been taken away long before now.

“I thought it interesting that it remains standing waiting to collect fares that will never come, so many years after these devices were removed throughout the city.

“I put some coins in. A light blinked a message, ‘not operational,’ but it did take my money.”

STATUS: Anu Aduvala, TPA’s vice-president of operations, confirmed that just over 200 of the old meters remain on city streets, and all are functional. So if you park in the spot next to the meter but don’t pay for parking, you could still get a ticket. Aduvala said the meters are still serviced and emptied of money by TPA staff, noting that they’ll accept loonies and two-dollar coins. The TPA is slowly removing the remaining meters, focusing on areas where several are clustered in the same area. The single meters, like the one on Parliament, will be the last to go, she said, adding that if a meter isn’t working properly, it can reported to the TPA by calling 416-393-7275.

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