Don’t grab the pitchforks over parking changes just yet

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/02/2018 (2806 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

You’re going to do what again?

After Winnipeg’s chief administrative officer Doug McNeil mused out loud this week about the possibility of removing parking pay stations — and forcing all motorists to use smartphone apps to pay for parking — you could almost hear the howling and hand-wringing.

Take away the ability to pay on-street for parking, either by coin or by card? What heresy is this? Where is the humanity, the compassion for people who either can’t or don’t want to trust their financial transactions to the internet and the same devices we use to take photos of what we had to eat for dinner last night?

For all those ready to reach for their pitchforks and torches, a word of caution: slow your roll. There are no immediate prospects for the elimination of hands-on, street-level, cash-based payment for parking.

Municipal parking has changed a lot in recent years, and there’s every reason to believe more change is on the way. What kind of change is coming to Winnipeg is, well, quite uncertain. But according to Colin Stewart, a policy analyst with the Winnipeg Parking Authority (WPA), there are no plans to eliminate coins as a method of payment.

“Not at this point, or any time soon,” Stewart said

That does not mean we aren’t slowly, cautiously moving in that direction.

The fact is that the WPA is already running a pilot project where physical pay stations are being completely phased out.

This is being done in an area immediately adjacent to the University of Winnipeg, where motorists were predominantly using the city’s smartphone app to pay for parking. While that doesn’t mean pay stations will completely disappear, it does mean that as smartphone apps become the dominant form of payment, there will be fewer and fewer physical kiosks.

In many ways — and likely what McNeil was trying to say — we’re already well along the way of an evolution in municipal parking technology that will eventually mean the elimination of on-street pay stations.

The evolution began in 2006, when the city started removing its inventory of mechanical, coin-operated meters, replacing them with 650 wireless, solar-powered digital pay stations that accepted both coins and credit cards.

More than a decade later, that number has declined to just under 450. This year alone, another 150 or so will be removed.

Why would the city remove pay stations, particularly in a period when Winnipeg’s population — and thus the number of cars driving on its streets — is growing steadily?

Stewart said the reduction in pay stations reflects trends found in analyzing when and where people park, and how they choose to pay.

Underutilized pay stations are being removed, as are those where people predominantly rely on virtual or remote payment options. (Winnipeggers can, if they still think their mobile phones are for phone calls, speak with an automated answering service to buy parking. How quaint.) When it comes to method of payment, the city is only responding to the market demands.

Still, does this mean we have to get rid of all the pay stations? When he made his comments, McNeil was largely speaking to the fact that acquiring, installing and maintaining digital pay stations is an expensive process. The first iteration of these machines cost $15,000 apiece, plus about $2,000 per year in maintenance costs and wireless charges.

If the city were able to buy 300 new wireless pay stations at the same price — a big if — it will still cost more than $4.5 million, with another $600,000 or more per year for a service contract. If, theoretically, everyone paid for their parking via a smartphone app, then most of those annual, up-front costs would be eliminated.

A precious few other cities, sensing the opportunity to save up-front costs, are already moving to eliminate pay stations. Stewart said Miami is in the midst of an ambitious pilot project, where it has removed all but two pay stations from an 85-block area of its downtown.

London, England, largely relies on pay-by-phone options for street parking. Some of this is because London has already equipped every registered vehicle within city limits with transponders that calculate and charge drivers a levy for bringing their cars and trucks into certain congestion-prone areas at peak traffic times. Requiring people to pay for parking via smartphone seems less onerous in that technological context.

And it’s important to note smartphone payment is not the only innovation that is affecting municipal street parking. Other communities are experimenting with apps that provide real-time information on available parking spaces, or ones that allow drivers to actually “sell” available parking time to other drivers.

Winnipeg is unlikely to adopt many of these innovations. Our harsh climate makes it very difficult to implement a tracking system for available parking, Stewart said. And there are no plans to map, mark and number every street parking space in the downtown, necessary to provide real-time information on available parking spots.

It could be, Stewart theorized, that technology companies, automakers and smartphone manufacturers will, on their own, start offering more real-time data that will help people find and pay for parking. Most Apple iPhones can send out alerts about the location of a parked car. This is done via a GPS locator, which kicks in as soon as your phone’s Bluetooth disconnects from your car.

For now, however, coins will continue to be accepted for parking in Winnipeg. Unless you don’t want to carry coins, and then you’re already well along the road to a parking future with no pay stations.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca