No more parking tickets in the evening and early morning
As of Tuesday, the city will no longer enforce metered parking before 9 a.m. or after 6 p.m.
McKellar Ward coun. Brian Hamilton’s motion to decrease the time for metered parking by two hours in the morning and three hours in the evening was a success.
Council unanimously voted to amend the by-law at Monday’s council meeting.
The change in enforcement will come into effect on Dec. 10, according to City Manager John Collin, and signage and bylaw amendments will catch-up in the new year.
Starting immediately, he told council, metered parking will only be enforced Monday to Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and outside those hours the public will not be ticketed.
Coun. Mark Bentz asked whether paid parking at the marina could be further reduced to make Saturdays free. However, Hamilton’s amendment only addressed hours of enforcement and Saturday parking will still be enforced.
As part of the amendment, administration will be reporting back to council before the end of January 2026 to inform them of the impact on the budget.
Coun. Kasey Etreni asked how much the city stands to lose by amending the parking by-law?
City Treasurer Keri Greaves said the only data administration was able to gather was over the last three months, but in that time “we believe the Monday to Saturday evening revenue for that period is about 41,000.”
“If we were to extrapolate that, at this point, we’re looking at about a $200,000 decrease in revenue,” Greaves said.
Collin added that administration believes they will still be able to achieve the mandated 3.8 per cent increase to the tax-supported operating budget for 2025.
“What we do not know is the long-term effects. We need at least a year under our belt, four seasons of operation to determine exactly what our revenue in parking can be moving forward,” Collin said.
Coun. Albert Aiello said, “we own this. We passed it. Now we want to backpedal and we have to own this as well. I think just from community feedback again, my perspective only, I think maybe possibly it was is a little too much all at one time.” – tbnewswatch.com
article website here
Where the city needs to crack down on parking is residential on-street parking. People park on city streets. Pay nothing. They do not have to clear snow from around their vehicles. Extension cords can be seen running across sidewalks and boulevards. On -street parking make proper snow clearing almost impossible. Snow plows have to make repeat visits to try and clear the snow. In fact, two lane streets are soon down to only one as winter snow piles up.
On-street parking needs to be discouraged. If on-street parking is going to be allowed, then parking permits must be required to park vehicles on the street. This will help the city reclaim some of the money spent on additional snow clearing required due to parked cars. And yes, other communities require such permits. Why charge for parking only in downtown cores and parks?
Of course, no politician would ever vote in favour of such a program, even if its the right thing to do. If the city is sooo hard up for cash, then this would provide millions.