A local council has announced that all its parking meters will soon be cashless, but the move is meeting with some opposition from residents.
North Sydney City Council has announced that all parking meters under its jurisdiction on the north side of the city’s Harbor Bridge will go cashless to coincide with the shutdown of Australia’s 3G network.
“Our parking meters are changing due to the upcoming 3G network shutdown across Australia,” the council said in a statement.
“All existing parking meters in the North Sydney LGA use this network so there is a need to upgrade it.”
The installation of the new meters will take place over the next month.
There are no other changes to paid parking zones or time limits.
The council said there were several reasons for moving away from cash and that only four per cent of those using parking meters still insert coins into the slots.
“Over the past year, the number of people paying for parking with coins has dropped to less than 4 percent,” he said.
North Sydney City Council has announced it is “upgrading” all of its parking meters to be cashless.
‘Failures in current parking meters occur, above all, due to vandalism in the coin boxes and traffic jams.
“Eliminating coin payments ensures the long-term reliability of our parking meters by reducing 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 fraudsters were placing fake QR codes on parking meters, tricking drivers into believing they were paying the advice.
The new cashless parking meters were met with mixed reactions from locals commenting online.
“I wonder how they plan to prevent that from happening,” the person asked.
Another commenter approved of the change with one caveat.
“It’s faster to tap than to find a $1 coin, as long as we don’t get charged for the card charges,” they said.