The residents of Bayonne, New Jersey are unusually fond of their old school parking meters — or so they discovered after city officials installed parking pay stations in lieu of the coin meters in hopes of being able to fit more cars on the street. The problem? The stations require vehicle owners to walk an additional couple of yards in order to pay. This simply will not do:

"The former Parking Authority was interested in seeing whether the pay stations could help provide more parking space while reducing costs," Mayor Mark Smith said in a statement.

"The people made it clear that they did not like having to return to their cars to place receipts in their windows. We decided to listen to the people and return to the former meters."

This wasn't just a handful of angry citizens, either - city officials received a petition with signatures from around 700 disgruntled citizens who really do not appreciate having the government steal a couple extra calories from them every time they go to park their cars.

[Images via Shutterstock]