The notion that parking meters could return to Main Street in Sarasota incited a predictable outcry. Merchants fear customers will exit the city core for the malls. Shoppers say they will not tolerate having to put quarters in a machine while shopping in high-end boutiques or eating at the best restaurants in town. And why, why, why would Sarasota City commissioners move on this plan that proved such an utter failure just four years ago?

Well, the last point has some merit, but not for the reason critics espouse. Yes, parking meters in 2012 proved a fiasco, partially because of shoddy technology but mostly thanks to a serious lack of resolve on the part of city officials. I can’t help but wonder, had paid parking been in effect for the past Olympiad, would there be any controversy around the devices today? I doubt it.

Now to be sure, parking meters would not be—and never will be—popular among most citizens of Sarasota. Neither will income taxes, baggage fees or colonoscopies. Having to pay an extra dollar an hour to park on Palm Avenue will never poll well, at least not as long as surveys query whether people enjoy paying money for something they could once do for free. But if you asked whether out-of-towners should contribute to parking management downtown or whether parking attendants should stop tracking cars that move around downtown to see if they stay in the area longer collectively than three hours, you might get a different answer.

People for years have hated for years the inability to find a decent parking space downtown. Those merchants who breathlessly describe the decline in visitors during the months that a $1-million-plus meter system operated neglect to mention that customers who did come downtown during that time could park near the businesses where they wanted to shop, or they could park for free in public garages and wander the streets for as long as they chose.

Today, you can get a ticket for spending four hours downtown even if you spread the time over three visits in a day and park in a different space every time. Almost anybody who works or regularly drives into downtown has found a piece of paper slid under their windshield charging more than a few quarters for spending too long in the city core. And while those of us who frequent downtown will grudgingly pay that price just to avoid one day finding a boot on our car, tourists who linger too long on Main seem more likely to mail back impulse buys than to send parking ticket payments back to Sarasota.

Most importantly from a taxpayer viewpoint, the city in 2017 will subsidize its parking fund with a whopping $625,000. That makes a $1-million one-time investment in working meters seem like pocket change.

Meanwhile, benefits for commerce could be reaped from effective parking management. Employees who use prime spaces today because they snatch good spots before stores open will suddenly direct themselves onto side streets to park for free. Terminals meter time as well, so turnover in those hot spots should help many stores that primarilly serve drop-in buyers.

Will there be shoppers who boycott downtown over meters? Of course, but somehow major metropolitan markets through Florida and the nation continue to thrive even with meters in place. Visit Sarasota County officials note many tourists show pleasant shock at free parking by most beaches. That Sarasota honors outcry ahead of solvency makes it an exception, not the norm. And a few years from now, all of this controversy will likely be forgotten, so long as city commissioners don’t buckle under pressure again.

Jacob Ogles is contributing senior editor to SRQ Media Group.