A city council has announced that all its parking meters will soon be cashless but the decision is meeting with some pushback from residents.
North Sydney Council has announced all the parking meters under its jurisdiction on the north side of the city’s Harbour Bridge will be made cashless to coincide with the shutting of Australia’s 3G network.
‘Our parking meters are changing due to the upcoming Australia-wide shutdown of the 3G network,’ the council said in a statement.
‘All existing parking meters in the North Sydney LGA use this network, which therefore requires an upgrade.’
The rollout of the new meters will take place over the next month.
There no other changes to paid parking zones or time limits.
Council said there were a number of reasons for going cashless with only four per cent of those using meters still feeding coins into the slots.
‘Over the past year, the number of people paying with coins for parking has lowered to less than 4 per cent,’ it said.
North Sydney council has announced it is ‘upgrading’ all its parking meters to be cashless
‘Malfunctions in our existing parking meters occur primarily due to coin-box vandalism and jams.
‘The removal of coin payments ensures our parking meters’ reliability long-term, as it decreases these ongoing maintenance costs.’
However, not everyone approved of the change.
‘Absolutely ridiculous, who wants to do a card transaction for $1?’ one person posted online.
Another warned that scammers were putting fake QR codes on meters fooling motorists into thinking they were paying council.
The new cashless parking meters were met with a mixed reaction from locals commenting online
‘I wonder how they plan to stop that from happening?’ the person asked.
Another person commenting approved the change with one qualification.
‘Quicker to tap on than finding a $1 coin, as long as they don’t pass on the card fees to us,’ they said.