Letters: Simple solution needed for parking machines

One of Rotorua's new parking machines. Photo / Zizi Sparks

The key to success with any new system is simplicity and ease of use. Apple, the most valuable company in the world, is a prime example of this, their products are well designed and simple to use.

Lack of simplicity may be part of the reason for a growing pushback against the new i-Park car parking machine system being installed in the CBD, particularly as the old "drop in coins until you've paid for enough time" method was simpler than the new method.

In my opinion, change was desperately needed to the car parking system. The old system offered a lack of consistent payment method across the CBD, plus the old meters are an eyesore and take up valuable space.

The new system improves this, but it does add additional steps - find a parking machine, enter your number plate, select how long you wish to park for and pay.

However, not all machines accept coins, and if you find yourself at a machine that only accepts debit/credit cards you will be pinged a 50 cent surcharge for the pleasure of using your plastic.

Sure, you can find another machine across and down the road which accepts coins without the surcharge, but for those with mobility issues, or those of us who forgot their umbrella on a wet day, this adds yet another step to the system.

Thankfully the solution is simple - ensure every parking machine installed takes payment in the form of both coins and debit/credit cards.

Ryan Gray
Rotorua

Brit view

Alf Hoyle (Letters, January 14) you sure seem to know nothing about the British people.

I am English and go back to the UK every two or three years to see the relations and no we do not sit around watching Coro or Eastenders.

We go and watch cricket in the summer and football in the winter. A few meals at Wetherspoons or the British Region. Maybe a trip to France, Spain or Ireland.

As for the comedians you go on about, most of the older comics got their start in the Working Men's Clubs, especially in the North and the North East.

If you were not good enough you would not just get booed off the stage but probably thrown off.

Places like Easington or Ashington, the Colliery Village in the North East would have been tough on a young comic coming up.

Billy T learned a lot from people like Tommy Cooper, Freddie Starr and Jim Davidson not to mention the older comics like Max Wall, Max Miller and Tony Hancock.

Clive Phillips
Selwyn Heights

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