Philadelphia recently installed credit-card meters, and they're terrible. They almost always refuse to scan either of my two cards correctly, a problem I never have with any other card scanners. I don't know if it's because they're exposed to the elements or what, but they just don't perform as advertised. NFC would be great in this scenario, as you can fully protect the sensor from the weather.

In flyover country where I live (St Louis) I should be happy that we even have digital coin-op meters and not ancient clockwork models. A couple years ago they put pay-and-display meters in a few neighborhoods, only to inexplicably get rid of them and replace them with coin only meters.