It Took Us 25 Minutes To Pay To Park Legally in the City of Buffalo

Parking in the city can be a real grab-bag experience. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's not. Last night, I learned just how difficult it can be.

My friend Amy and I went to Cole's for trivia night, and easily found parking in the lot right behind the bar.

It was almost too easy.

Most lots now use electronic meters; you put in your credit card, you desperately try to remember your license plate number, and eventually it spits out a ticket for you to put on your dash -- a symbol to all parking ticket writers that it's not you, not today.

So what happens when the meter is busted?

Pay at another pay station? I turn around.

Nope. This would be the only one. Now some people might have just tried their luck. Not my friend. Once you get a parking ticket, you learn. We were determined to park legally.

So Amy says, maybe there's an app? And she's right! Is it one she already has downloaded? Of course not. So she downloads it. And we wait.

Meanwhile, other motorists have dealt with the parking meter malfunction in their own way.

After the app is downloaded, of course we need to create an account. Sigh.

Then, you have to put a minimum of $10 on the "wallet" in the app. So, now $2 parking is a $10 investment. OK.

And add insult to injury, a 10 cent convenience fee for using the app.

Ten dollars and 25 minutes later, we finally were on our way.

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