Good luck Mr. Holmes, you make an excellent case, but you are dealing with City Hall. City Hall is likely to do something unusual and unexpected.
For example; purchase an over priced, limited range small passenger vehicle
(just try to get 4 burly people in a Nissan Leaf) that will not be very useful in cold weather.
metalman.

O.K. so let’s not remove the tax burden from home owners and let’s spend more on having City staff drive around wasting gas looking for parking infractions? Seriously this meter removal was a pilot project, the project has shown that it simply increased cost to the tax payers. Metering works, it moves people on so others can use the spot. It seriously doesn’t impact downtown business as badly as the outrageous rental rates, common area maintenance or extra rent the building owners charge the businesses to lease space.

Look at down town…..go to city hall and find out who owns what buildings and look at the shape of those buildings? How about the boarded up buildings on 3rd and on George St. Land lords are charging stupid rates for leas space and not looking after buildings they own (at least the outside let alone the inside and structure). You want to improve business downtown, jump on the property owners to clean up there properties and reduce the rents so a new business can stand a fighting chance to grown in the downtown core.

Really? Fifty cents or a buck to park your car is going to impact your decision to visit a downtown business? Gee if that’s an issue, maybe you should stay at home and save on the gas you burn coming downtown or any where for that matter. Be thankful the City hasn’t decided to apply pay parking to every City controlled venue. Maybe the City planners need to spread out all the outreach services so that the downtown core has a lower concentration of these services in one area, maybe that would clean up the downtown core a bit as well….

Look metering is not as big a deal as everyone is making it out to be, the DBIA is off base with there statement. Clearly imaging for a moment having to pay to park in any city facility? You need to pay to park at the hospital and at UNBC. So what’s the issue? 50 cents, a dollar ?

Hey, the down town area has been recieving a lot of attention crying the blues,put the meters back in and suck it up boys, DBIA can use their tax funds to sub if its such a concern. High time they all stop crying if your going to shop down town 25 cents won’t stop people. We need all the money city can raise to full in pot holes

“because of snow on licence plates”??

There is a ticket right there, much higher than a parking fine.

From the BC MVA

Plates to be unobstructed
3.03 A number plate must be kept entirely unobstructed and free from dirt or foreign material, so that the numbers and letters on it may be plainly seen and read at all times and so that the numbers and letters may be accurately photographed using a speed monitoring device or traffic light safety device prescribed under section 83.1 of the Act.

“wasting gas”???

They are about to buy an electric verhicle. Why do you think they are doing that? The $50,000 is coming out of the parking meter fines. ;-)

Professional … do you own a business downtown?

I say those who own businesses there also “own” the problem which seems to mainly be employees using the parking spaces more than shoppers. I would say the DBIA should work with their merchants to solve that problem.

Its got nothing to do with the DBIA. Its all about the City grinding us for a few more dollars. The cost of the meter is not so bad, however if you miss putting in the money the fine is extreme.

We need to get dowtnown on par with the rest of the retail business and not have meters.

If the City wants meters, then they should install them at City Hall, and other City yards first. Let them operate under the same rules as the rest of us.

No more free rides.

Have a nice day.

Yes I own a business downtown and my staff have company supplied parking.

As I said in another thread, taking out the meters was an experiment that failed. People abused the free parking.

If meters are going to stop people from going downtown, I would suggest they probably didn’t want to go down there that badly to begin with.

“the City has lost money over the term of the free parking pilot project”

So whose fault is that? Who was the person in charge of the program during this pilot project? If that person cannot run a pilot project without it having a negative net return, maybe that person should not have been in charge of the program?

And they let that go on for two years?

So, be a good samaritan then Professional and help the DBIA to get others to do what you have done. Leadership by example is usually the best.

I would rather drop a couple of coins for a metered parking spot than have to drive around and around looking for a “free ride” (see what I did there…lol)”free parking spot”. As it stands there is too much abused parking space downtown, metering will cut that issue down, enforcement will deal with the repeat offenders. Maybe towing and storage fees on top of the parking fine will teach the few offenders a lesson.

“Let them operate under the same rules as the rest of us.”

You saw Professional’s post Palopu. The norm is that the companies pay for the parking. I used to work in the Scotia Building and all our employees had free parking in the BDC parkade.

Some people just do not want to walk that far. Remember, this is PG, not Vancouver.

Business owners need to suck it up just like everyone else, if the land lords (property owners) would come up with reasonable rates for lease space instead of thinking this is Vancouver we may just get somewhere. The city has lots and parkades with reasonable rates for monthly staff parking. It’s a business expense that is a write off “cost of doing business”. Staff also need to think, if youre going to drive you need to park, nothing is free in this world other than one’s opinion…lol

Now you are getting to the real issue. professional. The issue, at least as far as I see it, is control of abusers, and when downtown does get busy at some time in the future, to keep people moving along during their 2+ hour shopping/eating extravaganza.

http://www.opinion250.com/blog/view/23813/3/pay+parking+coming+back+to+downtown+p.g.?id=140&st=10

At the above link, I posted info about two cities that are both larger than PG and have free parking downtown.

The one from Amarillo, TX is interesting because it has a number of posters on their which reminds me of this site … :-)

This one is especially valid, I think.
“They need to look at a town similar in size to Amrillo and quit looking at Dallas/Ft worth for examples. Do cities our size charge for parking? If so, do they have something unique, drawing people to that area. If not, this will never work.

“I remember when the water park opened in town and they charged for parking. People parked blocks away to avoid the fee and there were virtually NO cars in their parking lot.

“This should be baby steps. Maybe put meters in the busiest areas and see if they make money. I wouldn’t mind paying to get a good spot instead of driving around forever looking for a spot.”

So.. cost to reinstall the meters? Do they use the old one’s or by new high tech ones? labor to install? 2 to 3 meter people walking around.. lets say a combined $100 grand a year for wages? Less people going downtown because they don’t want to pay. Just to generate $80 grand a year????? Am I missing something?

vocer: The old meters were removed and placed in storage. The Duncan meter housing is a universal style housing which can use the old clock work guts and will also accept the new digital meter guts with no expense to replace the housings. Why the meter posts were cut off is anyone’s guess other than the poles posing a insurance risk for the city due to the drunk after hours public. We still have enforcement staff writing tickets so no more added cost there. We can always buy more older meter guts from other cities phasing out the old clock work meters or we can look at new digital guts for the existing housings we have in stock.

[url] http://www.princegeorge.ca/CityHall/MayorCouncil/CouncilAgendasMinutes/Agendas/2012/2012_03_26/index.html%5Burl%5D

The City has to make up its mind.

1. Use local people through City Hall to police it and generate some jobs through the public service system and hope that it makes money …. remember, part of this will end up with increasing parking rates to fine tune the situation so that it covers cost and then raising it to even make some profits which go to general revenues or an earmarked line item. Even that, I would not be sure that the city simply takes the installation of the meters out of their capital budgets and we lose something else that was supposed to be done with it, or will become a 0.5% tax increase next year and even borrowed for 20 years. Will we get these expenditures/revenues reported as a program? I am suspicious that we will not.

2. We can use Impark or some other service provider which will not include meters, but numbered spaces with a kiosk and probably a towing contractor contracted to patrol. I doubt they will spend more money than one individual per shift to patrol the entire downtown, including city parking lots.

Gus: People are complaining about spending 50 cents to park there vehicle, you think they are going to “walk” to a kiosk to buy a meter ticket without complaining about that too?

We get the single stall meters back and go from there. We have enfocement staff already in place to fine offenders. The meters will mean they will not have to wait two hours to check if an infraction has occured. They will simple do a patrol route and ticket as they go “no waiting required”. This means more productive use of City staffing and a better return on the cost out laid to re-install the meters.

It’s not this counsel that needs to be chewed out about this, it’s an earlier administration that removed the meters to start with.

I agree with Palopu, city hall should have pay parking. The city always talks about user pay…. $250,000 to repave the parking lot time for them to pony up. CNC and the university have paid parking why not city hall. Half a dozen 10 minute free and the rest pay.

If their parking is subsidized by the taxpayer, is that not a taxable benefit? Anyone from CRA?

Before the City makes a final decision they should properly research their options. How many meters do they need, how many do they have, how much will it cost to prepare and repair the meters. What will it cost in labour, materials and supplies to re-install the meters. How much revenue over what period of time to pay for the initial cost and what is the projected revenue after that?
The parking patrollers would be very familiar with the regular vehicles parked downtown that belong to the store owners and employees. It would not be difficult or costly to enforce the current time limits. I would think a few tickets, fines or tows would convince the violators to come up with better alternatives to the current musical cars game. Perhaps a little common sense and tough love could improve many issues in this town.

I really don’t think the issue is the 50 cents to park. We live in a cashless society and speaking from experience we jump in our vehicles and drive downtown only to find no coins for the parking meters so either you park and take a chance a ticket will not be received or give up and move to a mall.
As someone wrote a few days ago, add a buck or two to the tax bill and handle the situation. As a person who might frequent the downtown once or twice a year I certainly would not begrudge a couple of bucks a year added to my taxes to keep the meters at bay.
Another option is to meter every second stall. This should leave spaces for the shopper, generate revenue, and probably remove the downtown worker from the 2 hour dash out to move their car.

It’s just a plainly stupid idea…..parking meters are a pain in the keester, and getting a ticket for being five minutes late is even worse!! Apply your efforts on those currently abusing the system and leave the rest of us alone!!! Downtown business owners….they put these meters back in and I’ll boycott the downtown. Lots of consumers will.

I think Rod has a good idea with the mobile scanning system that’s mounted on a vehicle. The system automatically looks at the license plate and checks if someone has just moved within an area–likely an office worker who moved at coffee break. It mails out the ticket automatically and you don’t need all the meter maids and tire chalkers.

It works and as an added benefit, you can check if the vehicle is stolen automatically as well. You only need two employees (or contractors) to monitor the entire downtown from one vehicle. No meters and significantly less expense.

The key to making the system self sufficient is to get the cost down and eliminate the office worker abuse. Rod’s proposal is the only system that does both.

“you think they are going to “walk” to a kiosk to buy a meter ticket without complaining about that too?”

Few complaints as long as you do not have to put a ticket back into the car. Those systems are ancient. The spot has a number, the kiosks are located at several locations along the way – on Davie in Vancouver, of instance, the parkiing lot for the drug store has numbered spots and the kiosk is right at the entrance to the store. What could be simpler.

I would not be surprised if smart phones have an APP for that as well. The phone has a GPS, can locate where the nearest kiosk is, knows what the spot numbers are, and the rest is simple.

Think progressive.

Voila … seek and ye shall find …. takes longer to post than to find … ;-)

http://www.digitalpaytech.com/parking-solutions/integrated-parking-management.aspx

I have just been reading that. Amazing what a little transducer can do ….

http://www.duncansolutions.com/

Duncan meters are the same make that were removed from the streets here for the pilot project aka “free parking”. The new digital meters are linkable to a computer parking management system. The system can flag repeat metering, will accept debit and credit cards and cash as well as pay by cell phone option(for those who are now in a cashless society). The system can even alert the enforcement staff when a meter has “expired”.

The system is fully programmable for special events, zone changes and fee increases from a remote location.

Let’s not forget that the downtown business owners are already paying for this parking. There’s a nice little levy on the property taxes in the downtown C1 area (16% I think) for downtown parking. That’s a lot of money and if businesses are paying this much, it should be used for parking and not just siphoned off for other city budgets. I think the downtown businesses should be consulted about how this change will affect them too because they are the one’s paying and it’s their businesses that will be affected–the meter revenue is pocket change in comparison.

You got it Icicle …… I had called it double dipping in a previous thread. I am sure Council will not like using that term, but until I see the figures attributed to programs I will continue to think that way.

I am very much into cost accounting. In my business I need to know what the real costs are to run a project or a program in order to know whether it is cost recovery or not and what is subsidizing some other project.

If something is to be user pay, it should be as equitable as possbile. Sorry, it is just the way I feel in this day of “user pay” philosophy.

I do not know why the parking commission was disbanded, but I am starting to understand what one of the reasons might have been.

The reason that the downtown parking commission was disbanded was two fold.

It came about because of pressure from the DBIA and I think City Centre Ventures to remove the meters and go to a scanner type system. The DBIA showed that the meter system was costing the City money–more than they were generating. Note that the City’s latest report ignores the previous reports.

The DBIA wanted to have the meter maids all laid off with the exception of a couple to operating the truck mounted license plate scanner, but George Paul didn’t want that. He disbanded the downtown parking commission so that all the meter maids would be City employees and now unionized. You can’t lay them off when they are part of the union.

The City also then had all the downtown parking commission money which was in the millions at the time. This money has all been siphoned off and continues to be siphoned off.

The downtown parking commission had a volunteer board of downtown property and business owners that provided oversight as to how the funds were used. By eliminating the downtown parking commission, all oversight was also removed.

Walking to and fro between kiosks and yer car leaves you more time out in the open to be targeted and susceptible to an onslaught of dreg like “non merchant focused individuals”, (aka panhandlers or surly deadbeat ne’er do wells) intent on making you responsible for making up their income shortfalls. As an aside, who decides at city hall who gets to drive the new “toy”?

People using a Sledge Hammer were able to rob the parking meters at will. They are a good source of income for some people.

We dont need any bloody meters. For crying out loud, get this assinine idea that we have to make money on everything we touch out of your heads. Parking meters are a pain in the ass. Paying people to write tickets are also. Going to City Hall to pay the ticket also.

The City owns parking space downtown, and I am sure that they want the meters in place to force people to pay for using their parking facilities. (They are probably half empty)

In any event. They need to apply stickers to the vehicles(or get the licence numbers) of all the people who work downtown, and then fine these people if their vehicles are using public parking. That way you would get the people responsible for causing the problem.

Why should people who shop downtown be subject to parking fines, and those who shop at the big box stores get free parking?. Employees at the big box stores are not allowed to park close to the stores, as this is considered prime space for customers. At the very least those business;s downtown should monitor their employees to ensure they are not using prime customer parking. In addition they should give them a parking allowance.

There are many solutions to the parking problem that does not entail parking meters.

Going back to meters will not solve any problems, however it will create some, not the least of which is less people downtown.

“As an aside, who decides at city hall who gets to drive the new “toy”?”

Whoever loses the coin toss.

You are making way too much sense Palopu.Well said.

Retailers, add $.25 to the cost of every purchase downtown and donate it to the city.

It’s an invisible, painless way to get more money into the city coffers without upsetting everyone. Nobody will notice after the first week or two.

Ventura, CA, population 100,000+
http://m.vcstar.com/news/2012/jan/06/ventura-proposes-reducing-parking-meter-prices

“Ventura’s parking meters have resulted in more empty spaces downtown than the city would like to see, so on Monday night the City Council will consider cutting the price of parking in half on side streets.”

The installed meters 2 years ago. used $1.50/hr on main shopping street(s). Cut that to $1.00/hr when number of people shopping dropped.

The city’s goal is to have 85 percent of the street spaces full during peak weekend hours. A study conducted last summer by an outside consultant found that while the metered spaces on Main and California streets met that goal, those on other streets downtown were well under the benchmark. For example, on the afternoon of Saturday, July 16, the overall occupancy rate for metered spaces was 77.5 percent, according to the study.
—————————————–

So, making it work is a science.

I do not see nay study of actual space usage in the report. Were there any studies done. Did they have a goal as Ventura did? Or are they just foolin’ with costs andf they really do not care about the key prupose of meters – ensure that there is a reasonable turn around of customers using the spaces and that turning customers off for one reason or another is minimized.

If there is no such attempt, then it is just a money grabbing exercise that does not help the merchants any.,

Merchants used to give away special coins that could be used in meters..

Then before that merchants used to provide water and hay for the horses.

http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3468495

Peterborough, ON …

read the comments below the article. Sounds familiar..

“Downtown Peterborough? There is no downtown!! Parking is deplorable, so it really doesn’t matter what the city parking service does. Maybe an hours free parking would bring more clientele downtown.”

Not to add even more to this discussion (as really there are more important things – like fixing the roads) but I might suggest there is an easy solution. The DBIA gets money coming in from downtown property owners so why don’t they just guarantee that city taxpayers won’t have to pay for any loss and keep the current system going.

Someone was also telling me that the mayor and councilors get a cheap parking pass for something like sixty bucks a year that lets them park wherever they want for as long as they want. Why not make those special perks available for us average folks to buy?

Mitch2,
The merchants are already doing this, but the city isn’t considering this in their report. The merchants are paying .4% of their property assessment each year for parking downtown. That’s a lot of money each year. It’s wrong for the city to take their money for parking, but then not apply it to parking. The levy for parking should not be used for planting trees in college heights.