Nashua took one step closer to becoming a real city this week, at least for people living in the downtown looking to park their cars overnight.

A city panel recommended a pilot parking program to allow a few hundred city residents willing to buy a $10 permit to park their cars overnight on a handful of city streets.

It’s a baby step into the reality of the 21st century.

While Nashua debates this small concession for a fraction of the city’s residents, every other city in New Hampshire has figured out the riddle of overnight parking and some are implementing new technology to make their systems far more modern and efficient.

Back in Nashua, the city’s elected leaders have had a hard time getting off the starting line.

On Wednesday, the Infrastructure Committee, after months of consideration, recommended the city pass its overnight parking pilot program.

On Monday, Telegraph columnist David Brooks showed how the cities of Dover and Portsmouth have already implemented a new electronic parking system called EasyPark. Brooks reported it’s basically EZPass for parking spaces.

You buy an EasyPark device and keep it in your car, pre-pay money into an account, and the fee is deducted while you’re parking in a zone covered by the system.

Dover and Portsmouth allow overnight parking.

In Manchester, where overnight parking is allowed on streets throughout the downtown, they too are considering EasyPark.

In response to The Telegraph’s story on Nashua advancing its overnight parking program for 400 permit holders to the full Board of Aldermen for approval, readers asked if overnight parking would be extended to other areas of the city, like the North End, or French Hill.

Others urged their elected leaders to drop their pilot program in favor of a more modern plan to allow overnight parking throughout the city.

“It’s time to drop this overnight parking prohibition altogether citywide and eliminate ‘permits,’” one reader commented. “All other cities allow overnight parking and there are no problems whatsoever. Time for this city to get with the times.”

We concur.

The city’s overnight pilot program is better than nothing, but it’s hardly the answer.

This week the city and the Greater Nashua Chamber of Commerce unveiled their new logos aimed at attracting young professionals to the city. The mottos: Dare to Begin and Dare to Succeed, respectively.

We’d like to turn that around on the city’s esteemed leaders. Dare to allow people to park overnight along the streets of state’s second largest city. Take action to welcome people to the city and give them the dignity to park their vehicles on city streets.

If every other city in the state can figure it out, Nashua can, too.

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