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There's a wonderful piece of irony in the situation reported today in the appended article -- to which I've added an important "heads up".
British Columbia's Provincial parks have installed parking meters purchased from the USA and installed by Lexis, a Canadian Company. USFS-managed recreation fee sites in Arizona and BLM-managed sites in California have installed "Automatic Payment Machines" purchased from Canada that were made, installed and are operated under contract by -- you guessed it --LEXIS. Check out http://www.parking.ca/uprs/ to learn more.
In January of 2005, the business assets of Lexis were acquired by San Diego-based Cubic Corporation. Why is that important? BECAUSE America's land management agencies are under intense pressure to acquire and adopt as quickly as possible "swipe technology" for the collection of Entrance Fees AND 'Special Recreation Permit' fees at National Parks and other recreation sites. And guess what: Cubic Parking Systems is the only company to offer a contactless smart card payment system for on-street and off-street parking that is integrated and interoperable with public transit fare collection systems....
Read on to discover how hated are those parking meters and the length to which people go to sabotage them. Then prepare yourself for the coming of "Smart Card Payment Systems" to your favorite public recreation areas. They are coming and when they arrive, I expect they will be to the Great Outdoors, what PayPal is to internet commerce.
Scott
PS... Cubic Parking Systems is a division of Cubic Defense Applications group, a world leader in combat training systems, mission support services and defense electronics.
---begin quoted ---
October 27, 2005
Open season on parking meters
By MARK HUME
VANCOUVER -- Vandals have used blow torches, power cutters, glue, gum,
pry bars, vehicle jacks and bolt cutters to rob or assault parking
meters installed by the provincial government in British Columbia parks.
The wave of violence aimed at the unpopular meters is just one of the
problems that has plagued the government since the parking-lot meters
were installed in 27 parks, starting in May, 2003.
In some parks, U.S.-made meters choked on Canadian coins. In others,
machines simply malfunctioned, froze or rusted, leading officials to
lament privately about "the parking thing" that many wished would
simply go away.
"This program has been a comedy of errors right from the beginning,"
said Gwen Barlee, a policy director with the Western Canada Wilderness
Committee.
Ms. Barlee revealed the extent of the parking-meter problem yesterday
by releasing a portfolio of e-mails, sent between park officials, that
she obtained through Freedom of Information requests.
The correspondence shows a growing wave of frustration among bureaucrats as they dealt with the new meters.
While some of the vandalism was clearly the result of efforts to steal
money, some was apparently motivated by anger, as was the case at Mabel
Lake Provincial Park, where someone glued the coin slots shut and
posted a picture of Premier Gordon Campbell on the ticket dispenser,
along with a rude note about how parking fees were paying for ads
promoting the government.
In a July, 2003, e-mail, one official from the Ministry of Water, Land
and Air Protection tells another that parking meters at Ruckle Park, on
Vancouver Island, couldn't swallow Canadian coins.
"They are designed for U.S. coins," wrote Joe Benning to John Furney.
"Bottom line: Lexis has sold us machines with coin mechanisms that are not compatible with our currency."
In October, 2003, WLAP employee Lynn Kennedy sent an e-mail to
colleague Dick Heath to draw his attention to a parking-meter machine
with an apparent reputation.
"On Monday I went for a walk on French Beach with my family and
'experienced that parking machine,' " she wrote. "It kept returning my
loonies. It gave me a ticket for each loonie I put in but I could not
get it to retain the money. I watched for a while and saw several more
people have the same result. It was clearly a special fee-free day."
In October, 2004, Scott Benton -- WLAP's director of regional
operations -- wrote: "I see there were more articles about parking
meters that don't work. Are we moving ahead on replacements for these
machines or not?"
The reply was that $345,000 had been budgeted to replace 19 machines, which would be retired and possibly used for spare parts.
But the saga didn't end there. In January, 2005, Mr. Benton wrote to
two other WLAP officials to complain that the new machines still hadn't
been purchased.
"I can't believe we are still discussing this," he wrote.
Mr. Benton suggested that someone might want to write a note to the minister suggesting removal of parking fees from parks.
Getting machines fixed appears to have been an ongoing problem.
In a July, 2003, e-mail, Andy Smith -- BC Parks Supervisor for
Strathcona, on Vancouver Island -- sent an e-mail to a parking meter
company official, complaining about delays in getting a machine
serviced.
"Trying to overcome that problem we thought we would simply have you
install one of the two machines that were destined for MacMillan Park,
only to find out your staff had taken parts out of these to fix other
machines, but hadn't bothered to fix the initial ones again."
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- Land management 
