In the past several years, the City of Vancouver has been steadily replacing single-spot parking meters with standalone pay stations on each city block. “It’s more effective to run, less costly, we have fewer repairs, and it’s just more reliable for the public to use,” said Jimmy Zammar, the city’s deputy general manager of engineering services. “We are now getting to a point where there’s so few of these individual meters remaining, that it’s time to kind of wrap it up and transition to payment through electronic means.” So starting later this month, crews will begin decommissioning the coin slots on all parking meters and pay stations, eliminating the option to pay with cash entirely. “This will take about approximately two weeks for us to kind of cover the coin slots and update any information associated with that,” said Zammar. The city says 88 per cent of its parking revenue now comes from apps like Pay By Phone, eight per cent comes from credit cards at pay stations, and only four per cent comes from coins at parking meters. “With the cost of running those meters, operating them, the risks of transferring cash, the space we have in the yard for holding cash, and the risk of cash transfer through armoured vehicles, it’s really not sustainable for us. So we felt this is a good time,” said Zammar. The city expects some blowback from drivers who are used to paying for parking with coins. “Change is always hard. It’s always a bit of an adjustment for folks, especially with technological change,” Zammar said. “We hope it’s going to be a quick learning curve for those that are still reliant on like having a stack of coins in their pocket or in their car.” He added drivers can call 311 to discuss options for paying for parking over the phone. There are plans to remove all remaining single spot parking meters over the next year and replace them with pay stations that accept credit cards, so drivers who don’t want to download a parking payment app on their phone will have another option. “It’s time to try to be curious about those apps, try to get in the habit of pulling up your credit card or debit card, and maybe start relying less on those coins,” Zammar said. “Because the time is now.”
