To buy the cards, order online or use your zip code to find a nearby vendor. As always, meter rates vary by region and are still the same as if you'd paid with quarters.

Don't want to carry around anything new? San Francisco also tested a pay-by-cell phone system in 2007. I liked the idea, but poorly designed phone-tree registration systems and extra fees for using these services kept me away. (If you try it out and have problems with DPT, contacting the service provider seems more effective than contacting DPT.)

Still, parking in San Francisco is rarely easy. Says NPR,

Finding a parking space in San Francisco can be about as easy as winning the lottery. Drivers are known to circle for 30 minutes or more searching for a spot, clogging up traffic and sometimes causing road rage incidents. But they soon may be able to use their Blackberries or cell phones to snag a spot.

Unfortunately, congestion is a problem that's going to remain. SF is dominant, and people want to be here. Services like GottaPark might eventually help with finding a spot, but at least now we won't need to keep scrounging for change while we settle for meters.