If you are looking to part on the side of a street in Jerusalem, there are four different options:
- Parking is illegal (signified by a red circle side with a diagonal blue line running through it and/or red and yellow stripes painted on the curb)
- Parking is legal…but you have to pay (signified by black and blu stripes on the curb or a parking meter by your space)
- Parking is legal…and free (no signs, nothing on the curb)
- Parking might be legal or illegal, and you have no way of knowing whether by parking you will get a ticket for violating some obscure city parking ordinance unless you take a chance and park there (no signs, noting on the curb).
For the second option (you gotta pay), if there is no meter by the space, this does not mean that you are exempt. Instead, you have to go looking for a machine which will issue you your temporary parking permit. There are usually a couple on every street where there is pay parking. You then put in your money (4.4 shekel per hour), press a green button and out comes your parking pass. On it is printed the date and time issued, the time when your permit expires, and the ID of the issuing meter. You put it in your windshield (don’t forget to tear off the stub). That’s it. Pretty easy system. Everyone is a winner (you get change back, can enter only as much time as you want, have proof of purchase and know exactly what time the meter expires…while the city has a very easy way to check up on people, and they earn more money, since when you leave your spot, you can’t give your extra time to the next person like you could with a meter).
Except for when the machine doesn’t work. As it didn’t work for me this morning. I put in my 11 shekel for about 2.5 hours, hit the green button heard the printing sound, heard my money being swallowed by the machine. And no slip came out. Either the printing mechanism is broken or it is out of paper, but the machine certainly “thought” that I had paid and collected a slip. And I was out 11 shekel.
On closer inspection, the machine had an 800 number (they have those here – gotta love toll free) for complaints and problems. I called in the hopes that someone would answer at 8:40 in the morning, and on the second ring, a nice Israeli woman picked up. I told her what had happened, and the meter number. She told me that someone else had called about it a few minutes ago, and that the serviceman was on the way. She took down my car license plate number and make/model, so that if I get a ticket she would have record of my complaint, took my cell phone number to call me when the serviceman came near, and told me to write a note for the meter maids to let them know why I don’t have my permit. All this in less than two minutes.
Now how’s that for some good service (that never happened to me in Boston)?!