A few weeks ago, a friend of mine was visiting from out of town and pulled out her quarters to pay for parking while in downtown Eugene. She paused, realizing that there was no slot for coins, only a screen prompting payment by card. At that moment, we both realized how strange it was that so many systems are moving away from accepting physical cash.
As cities continue to modernize infrastructure, cashless systems — while convenient for some — are exposing accessibility concerns. In a town filled with college students and people of all incomes, it’s important to have conversations about equity and access.
The city of Eugene’s website states that the switch to a card-only system was due to a large amount of meter vandalism and coin theft. While these concerns are understandable, completely removing cash places a burden on residents who rely on it.
A year ago, a Reddit thread with over 170 replies discussed Eugene parking meters only taking cards.
The initial post said, “As annoying as it is when private businesses don’t accept cash, I feel like that is their prerogative, but public gov(ernment) entity pulling this seems discriminatory at best.”
Another user responded, “I miss being able to drop a couple of quarters in and run an errand. Involving a card makes me avoid the area.” This issue has clearly concerned members of the community for some time.
Anne Brown is an associate professor at UO’s School of Planning, Public Policy and Management with a focus on transportation equity and travel behavior. She spoke on how card-only access affects unbanked populations.
“Unbanked households make up a declining share of American households, about 4.2% in 2023; this totals 5.6 million households nationwide,” Professor Brown said.
“I’d argue that parking access is not curtailed by a move to card-only meter parking in Eugene,” Brown said. She noted there are cash options at off-street garages and “multi-space kiosks in other city-owned parking lots.”
Brown offered a few alternate solutions Eugene could implement to maintain efficiency while ensuring the system remains inclusive. These included cash-loadable cards, integrating LTD’s tap card to be compatible with parking meters and postal banking.
However, the discussion surrounding cashless systems goes beyond just parking access.
Associate Professor of Sociology Jill Harrison specializes in studies of inequalities, occupations, labor and working class studies. She explained how there are important issues and inequalities created within public cashless systems.
Professor Harrison explained that credit, debit and prepaid cards all have fees or interest set by private companies, adding a cost to transactions. The shift to cashless systems works to increase profits for these companies. “There are clear inequalities present here,” she said.
Harrison also mentioned how using cashless systems requires technological literacy. She shared the example of her own mother, who is in her 70s and only uses cash or checks, and isn’t “technologically savvy.”
Access differences can leave some community members feeling excluded from an increasingly digital system.
“Cities definitely have responsibility for ensuring accessibility across a variety of domains of public life,”Harrison said. “The key is, we need people in positions of power that think and make decisions about issues like these.”
