Downtown drivers adapting to parking ‘change’
Motorists enjoying benefits of digital parking meters
For many drivers, there was a learning curve. But Lethbridge motorists are appreciating the benefits of their new digital parking meters downtown.
And they’re carrying a lot fewer coins.
With the Christmas shopping season well underway, officials say customers as well as business owners are positive about the change.
“We had to change about 60 years of parking behaviour,” says Andrew Malcolm, Urban Revitalization manager for the City of Lethbridge.
Installation of the new meters began last spring.
Surprisingly, one of the initial problems came when drivers couldn’t remember their licence number. Others didn’t know what to do — touch a key — when a kiosk is in “sleep mode.”
It took three or four months, he says, before most people adapted to the new technology — and began making use of its new advantages.
Shoppers, for example, realized they could move their vehicle to another parking spot within the period of time they selected — without having to go back to a meter. Or they could use their cellphone to add more time, while waiting for an appointment.
For employees, the new 10-hour zones mean they can park within walking distance of their office or store, with no need to go back and pay more — or risk a parking ticket.
As expected, Malcolm says, that freed up many more convenient spaces for customers — just as business people had hoped.
“A lot of them embraced the change from the beginning,” he says.
Some business people, he reports, go so far as to register a regular customer’s licence plate number. Then, as a courtesy, they can readily add meter time for a customer who’s staying longer than planned.
As another alternative, motorists and businesses can purchase prepaid parking cards at city hall. A practical gift, for sure!
After years of relying on loose change to feed the meters, Lethbridge motorists quickly adapted to the digital technology.
Today, Malcolm says, about 44 per cent of the parking fees are paid through a phone app or a payment card.
“So we have a lot less coin to process,” he notes.
While that makes the parking system more cost-effective, so does the ease of maintaining the new equipment. A parking kiosk will automatically send out a repair request if it goes out of service, Malcolm explains — and most issues can be resolved online from a central monitoring station.
And for parking enforcement, Commissionaires now patrol the downtown area using a cameraequipped vehicle — not on foot. But they also use hand-held terminals if there’s an over-parked vehicle with an illegally obscured licence plate — or one that’s been backed into an angled parking space.
For motorists, he says, the new technology offers another bonus. It can pinpoint the streets where parking spaces are the most heavily used. And where, on the other hand, spaces are more likely available.
On a busy day downtown, Malcolm advises, drivers should be able to find a spot between 1 and 4 Avenue, anywhere west of 4 Street South. They’ll find a choice between three-hour and 10-hour meters.
Usually, he says, those spaces are under-utilized.