Parking meters have been a sore point in Spokane since the days you could get 12 minutes for a penny, and the arguments for and against reflect 75 years of consistency.

As the city considers a meter rate hike supported by Mayor Dennis Hession, expect to hear that on-street parking expenses will drive shoppers away, especially those from out of town. Also, that it’s just a way to bleed the citizens.

The city of Spokane started considering “park-o-meters” in 1935, right after the first ones were introduced in Oklahoma City, and opponents quickly uttered the same criticisms we hear today. And then as now, the arguments for meters were simple. They produce revenue and they keep a handful of motorists from monopolizing the on-street parking.

Spokane has valid reasons in 2007 to increase the revenue from parking meters.

For one, there are bonds to pay off from the River Park Square settlement. Nobody knows better than this newspaper, which is owned by the company that developed River Park Square, that those bonds are controversial. But the city is legally bound to pay them and the current stream of parking meter revenue will be inadequate in 2013.

The city also has an interest in the upcoming revision of the downtown plan. Added parking meter receipts would allow City Hall to meet its share of the expense for a process that will produce a blueprint for wise downtown development and will promote economic vitality to the whole region’s benefit.

A central point needs to be remembered. On-street parking in downtown is cheap. It offers the convenience of being available just about everywhere people want to go – for 60 cents an hour at two-hour meters. Ten-hour meters, a little farther from the core, are 20 cents an hour. (For what the comparison is worth, Seattle charges $1.50 an hour.)

Will a 20- or 25-cent increase, or an added hour of meter operation in the evening, drive consumers to the shopping centers or out of town? If Spokane’s modest parking costs are the difference in anyone’s decision about where to shop and dine, those people have already gone.

Downtown Spokane is a distinctive experience, with a variety of attractions that influence those decisions more than a few extra nickels for parking.

What higher rates would do is bring parking costs up to date and price the meters more realistically for the convenience they offer. A rate increase probably will discourage downtown workers from tying up nearby parking meters all day, allowing more customers to make their contribution to a bustling economy.

Spokane parking meters first went into use on Jan. 2, 1942, beginning as a six-month test. In a referendum that August, 65 percent of the voters wanted to keep them. The coming storm will pass as well.