Park and Ride: Free Parking Overflow

So I work a job where I sometimes work downtown, and sometimes at a more accessible office with free parking. When I work downtown I usually like to park and ride at Fish Creek. Problem is, by the time I get to the station (usually around 9ish) all the free parking is full and all that's left is the reserved parking (only reserved until 10 am). I usually see 2 or 3 cars stacked right beside the sign as people think 'oh, the officers will see that the free stalls are full and I'm right beside them so they'll let me off easy'. I've done this many times without incident, until today I see that I've got a 40 dollar ticket. The time indicated was 9:27 am, so I'm stuck with it. No use fighting if the ticket says 'CPA cannot withdraw parking tickets on the basis of compassionate or mitigating circumstances'. If the officer was being compassionate, he wouldn't write a ticket.

What I'm getting at here is, if this is going to be increasingly more common, does anyone have any other suggestions for parking places near Fish Creek where I won't get ticketed? Or, alternatively, maybe they could reduce the amount of reserved spots? It's ALWAYS empty while everywhere else is full.