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Parking meter update on hold

Being reprogrammed to accept new coins

By: Jen Skerritt

Posted: 08/8/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Archives In July, city council voted to restrict on-street parking to two hours and raise rates on high-use downtown streets from a loonie to a toonie per hour.

Winnipeggers will have to rifle through their wallets for old change a little longer as the move to retool city parking meters to accept new loonies and toonies has been delayed.

The Winnipeg Parking Authority's Colin Stewart said the city's 671 pay stations will be adjusted to accept the new coins at the same time they're modified for higher parking rates and new on-street parking restrictions. He said the city had initially hoped to reprogram all machines by the end of summer, but the $300,000 project will likely be complete by Oct. 1.

Winnipeg is currently working with a Toronto-based pay station provider to adjust the machines to recognize new parking rates, time restrictions and the loonies and toonies. Stewart said the same chip that controls which coins a pay station accepts is also used to set hours and rates. He said Winnipeg could have tweaked the machines to accept the coins separately, but decided doing both adjustments simultaneously will save time and money.

In July, city council voted to restrict on-street parking to two hours and raise rates on high-use downtown streets from a loonie to a toonie per hour. Winnipeg is poised to start metered parking one hour earlier, at 8 a.m., and extend metered parking to 8:30 p.m. in selected blocks around the MTS Centre.

"The two can be done together," Stewart said, noting officials have received few complaints about the fact the meters still do not take the new coins. "This is the largest project they've ever had to do for an update."

When the Royal Canadian Mint unveiled the new loonies and toonies earlier this year, vending machines, laundry machines and parking meters across the country had to be modified to recognize the new coins. Currently, no Winnipeg pay stations have been updated to accept the new loonies and toonies.

Stewart said technicians at a Toronto facility are currently working to "teach" new coin acceptors to recognize the loonies and toonies. To do this, he said they first program the coin acceptor, then train it to recognize the coins by inserting them over and over again. Stewart said it takes about 20 repetitions for the coin acceptor to take the coins.

Once complete, the new coin acceptors will be sent to Winnipeg and one of the company's maintenance workers will install them and phone the data centre in Toronto to make sure it works.

jen.skerritt@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 8, 2012 B2

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