City’s pay parking system down for hour Wednesday

Motorists who received a ticket during a morning crash of Saskatoon’s on-street parking pay stations can ask for a review of the fine.

Jo-Anne Richter, the City of Saskatoon’s director of community standards, said in an emailed statement that the city’s parking station system crashed from 9:58 a.m. until 11:11 a.m. Wednesday.

The city received 65 calls about the outage.

“Customers are encouraged to pay for parking in the usual manner either with the parking app or at any city parking terminal,” Richter said in the statement. “If — for whatever reason — a customer receives a violation notice for unpaid (on-street) parking during an outage, they always have the option of a ticket review.”

Richter did not explain what caused the outage or whether such an incident has happened before.

The parking stations were first introduced in Saskatoon in 2015 to replace meters in the downtown and other business districts, like Riversdale and Broadway.

Payment for on-street parking is linked to a vehicle’s licence plate, which is scanned by devices on parking enforcement vehicles to determine whether a motorist has paid or not.

The system was beset by technical trouble when first introduced, prompting the city to implement a grace period for violations.

Complaints about tickets have levelled off from 60 to 70 a day when the stations were first established to 15 to 20 of about 10,000 daily transactions last year.

The city introduced the WayToPark app a year ago to allow greater flexibility in payment, but it arrived 18 months later than scheduled. The city takes in about $10 million a year in parking payments and fines.

In September, Coun. Zach Jeffries asked the administration to report back on an internal process to review tickets in instances where an incorrect licence number is entered, so a trip to court can be avoided. That report is still pending.

If … a customer receives a violation notice … they always have the option of a ticket review.