Paul Newman Knows How To Solve A Parking Problem

     This year the City of Austin installed new parking meters all over the downtown area and recently   decided to change the downtown parking rules.  As of September 6, 2011 there will be no more free parking on Saturdays and Thursday through Saturday  paid parking hours have been extended until 12 AM.  Before the changes all day and night on Saturdays were free and it was always free to park after 5:30 PM during the week days.  This move by the city council has been deeply unpopular among
Austin motorist.  87% of Austin's citizens were against the change but the council went ahead and did it anyway.
     More and more the world seems to be unable to function without automobiles.  We are either buying or selling them, complaining about the congestion they cause or causing havoc as we drive down the road talking and texting away.  Parking those pieces of steel never enters our mind unless we can't find a parking spot or until someone takes away a free parking privilege.  In Austin as in many cities, free parking has been taken for granted for a long long time.  Whether it's at a large Box Store or in our driveway we demand free parking every where we point our cars.  I guess if the Austin City Council had their way they would put meters in every Walmart parking lot and even in all the residential driveways.
     Although only a few may originate a policy, we are all able to judge it.  That judging has already started when the Austin citizens voted a council member out of office who had supported the changes.  The council member was beaten by a unknown new comer from the suburbs who constituents are the one's who spend Saturdays in downtown Austin.
     The new parking rules have only been in effect for about a week and know one will be issued parking tickets for another month but I am just waiting for you know what to hit the fan.  I'm not worried, it won't take long before those suburbanites who flood downtown Austin for 5K runs, Longhorn football games and other community events  will  all have tickets on their windshields.  Over night hundreds of Paul Newmans will likely appear.  Rise up Austin and vote another councilman out of office in the next city election.  Just like the warden in Cool Hand Luke told Newman "What we have here is a failure to communicate" the citizens of Austin should demand better communication from their wardens on the City Council
     No! I am not going to saw off the heads of any of the city's parking meters but I'm mad enough to.  I'll just think of Cool Hand Luke walking down the street, calmly drinking beer from a longneck  as he goes about decapitating all the parking meters in town.