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Birmingham car parks and car parking of the past

Vivienne14

Vivienne14

Kentish Brummie Moderator
Staff member
Hard to believe - just 22 parking places ! Would that be 22 places with multiple spaces or just 22 spaces ?!

Screenshot_20231217_211408_Chrome.jpg
Source: British Newspaper Archive
 
By the late 1940s underground and 'skyscraper' (!) car parks were planned. Plans seem to have been made as early as 1937, but WW2 intervened.


Screenshot_20231218_112518_Chrome.jpg
Source : British Newspaper Archive
 
And in the 1950s - bigger cars = need for bigger parking spaces.

Screenshot_20231218_113642_Chrome.jpg
Source : British Newspaper Archive
 
Arrival of the dreaded parking meter in the 1960s, but no help to the ongoing parking problem

Screenshot_20231218_114201_Chrome.jpg
Source : British Newspaper Archive
 
I read that our planners and councillors had trips to New York, Washington, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Paris in 1956 to research the feasibility of parking meters.
 
I have a belief that parking payment machines are designed either by sadists or morons, I'm not into smart phone types I only use my debit card. There is the m/c that knows the cars that are in it's area and you have to key in your reg. I met one this week where the letters and numbers are on a key pad are too small to read without glasses and the key pad is too low to the ground so you have to kneel down to use it. Then there is the other type where you prepay for a period of time but doesn't have clear instructions on how to select the time you need so you have to keep starting again. Perhaps they are designed to get us to talk to our fellow man/woman because often a small committee is spontaneously created to solve the problems created by the design of these machines. Or is it just me?
 
devonjim said:
I have a belief that parking payment machines are designed either by sadists or morons, I'm not into smart phone types I only use my debit card. There is the m/c that knows the cars that are in it's area and you have to key in your reg. I met one this week where the letters and numbers are on a key pad are too small to read without glasses and the key pad is too low to the ground so you have to kneel down to use it. Then there is the other type where you prepay for a period of time but doesn't have clear instructions on how to select the time you need so you have to keep starting again. Perhaps they are designed to get us to talk to our fellow man/woman because often a small committee is spontaneously created to solve the problems created by the design of these machines. Or is it just me?
Click to expand...
Yes, by both morons and sadists! Must be the qualifications required on both sides of the pond. We lived in a town in a sunny climate if you used the parking meter to get a parking ticket before dusk you could not read the screen to see what you were doing. And then more often than not if you went in the afternoon the ticket printer was out of paper which you found out after you paid with your card!
 
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