THUNDER BAY — City staff will be asking council to consider changing the parking bylaw and give residents a break on parking fees.
The initiative would be a trial, aimed at collecting information about parking habits. Keri Greaves, commissioner of corporate services, told Newswatch they are recommending council allow two hours of complimentary on-street parking on all metered parking and four hours of complementary parking Monday to Saturday at the Marina, including Market Square.
This will mean that residents visiting the downtown core or Westfort, for example, would get two hours of free parking with the option of paying for up to two additional hours.
At the Marina, residents will get four hours free with the option to purchase an additional four hours at $2/hour.
Greaves said the reason for this change is to help improve parking turnover and collect data to “make decisions on future pricing structures.”
“Right now, the zones are limited. The information that we're getting on the zones, the data that we're receiving on the zones, shows really fairly low utilization. Part of that problem is that the zones are so big, not all parking spots are created equal. What we want to do in the long term is increase the number of zones so that we can focus on the data and which zones are more used versus others,” said Greaves.
He said the Marina is an example of an underutilized parking. The free four-hour parking will allow residents to go out for more leisure activities at the waterfront, and if they choose to stay for the additional four hours for an event, they would “not have to worry about feeding the meter.”
The time-limited free parking is meant to incentivize residents to shop local, and help the city will collect its data.
Greaves said motorists will still need use the mobile parking app or parking meters to book a spot.
“That will allow us to collect the data so that we can still see if price was no object, how often the space is used, which spaces are used and when. It's gonna be really good information, so that if council decides to go this route, and once this initiative is over, we would have that information and be able to make better decisions on our price structures,” said Greaves.
This initiative would not be implemented right away. Administration will need a councillor to request a notion of motion to bring the recommendation forward at a future council meeting.
