West Windsor Parking Authority

An awful, almost Kafkaesque parking lot. I’m not a commuter but I do take the train into the city from time to time, and every time there’s a new and astounding obstacle between me and my train.
How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways:
1) The station is not big enough for the number of people who use it. Instead of just building a multi-​story parking garage, though, they keep expanding the lot into adjacent properties until it’s this massive, sprawling expanse. You can easily end up with a spot that’s a fifteen minute walk to the platform.
2) Their other solution to the lack of space is to make the spots comically narrow. Plan on needing two or three attempts to get yourself into a spot. I’m always afraid that I’m going to arrive back at my car to find a huge dent from either of my neighbors opening their door in a hurry.
3) The Dinky train, which runs back and forth between the Junction and downtown Princeton goes right through the middle of the parking lot. What’s worse is that the Dinky’s schedule is arranged so that it gets to the Junction right before the NYC train arrives. If you find yourself parked on the other side of the Dinky tracks… oh well. The sidewalk to the main platform goes right through the Dinky’s path, so if the gates are down, you’re screwed.
4) There’s a portion of the parking lot off Vaughn Drive that has larger spaces and is closer to the platform. It’s a manned booth, too, so you can avoid the aggressively user-​unfriendly parking pay stations Unfortunately, the booth closes at 11:30AM. If you arrive after that, a sign helpfully informs you to get a ticket «at our office.» The location of the office is not provided.
5) Oh, did I forget to mention the parking machines? The daily parking machines, i.e. the machines designed for occasional users of the parking lot, accept only two kinds of payment: a parking authority prepaid card, or a parking authority token. You cannot put cash into the machine; you cannot pay with a debit or credit card. Your best option is to get a token from the token machine next to the pay station. These machines only accept cash, and they do not make change. If all you have is a ten, and you only need parking for today, oh well — what you’re going to get is parking and an extra $ 5 parking authority token that you can’t do anything else with until the next time you need to use the daily lots.
If you need to use the lot, do what I do and add a twenty minute buffer to deal with whatever random obstacle you’re going to bump into. And bring a five-​dollar bill with you for the token machine.