Keep coins at home; parking paystations get the heave-ho

The City of Winnipeg has started to dismantle parking paystations downtown, becoming just the second city in North America to force drivers to use other methods of payment.

“It’s going to be a big change,” said Lisa Patterson, manager of operations and facilities for the Winnipeg Parking Authority.

In late May, the city announced it would remove all paystations on streets and city-operated surface lots by Aug. 31, leaving parkers to pay by calling 1-888-680-7275 and paying with a debit/credit card, purchasing prepaid parking booklets, or the most common way, the PayByPhone app — which is already used for more than 80 per cent of parking transactions, according to the city.

On Tuesday afternoon, workers were seen taking down paystation units.

Patterson said removing them will save the city $1 million a year in operating costs and avoid a $3.6-million investment to replace them once Canada shuts down outdated 3G networks in late August. Edmonton, which began axing its paystations in April, is the only other city to do so.

“The city needed to look at some opportunities for cost savings, and removing the meters is one way to cut some costs. It’s a big capital expense,” she said. “These machines are 20 years old, don’t forget. It’s like having a cellphone that’s 20 years old.”

Patterson hopes the change will encourage more downtown parkers to adopt the PayByPhone app.

To accommodate the people who use cash, Patterson said they’ve implemented prepaid parking booklets. The booklets include up to 10 hours of parking and can be bought at the Parking Store on Portage Avenue, city hall, Access Saint Boniface on Goulet Street and other locations. They can also be purchased for mail delivery at no extra cost by calling 311.

Each page of the booklet represents one hour of parking, so customers can rip out however many pages they want and leave them on their dashboard. The booklets are valid for several years.

In case someone’s phone dies and they are unable to use the app, Patterson said the prepaid parking booklets are an insurance policy for people should they plan their trips to downtown ahead of time.

The city believes transitioning out of paystations may help with crime. Around 18 paystations have been vandalized since November, Patterson said.

She said people have managed to take the machines off the street and drill into them to try to get the coins. Each unit costs $8,000 to replace.

She also said there will still be opportunities to use paystations at private lots downtown.

“What we’ve been reminding people is that there is surface lot parking pretty much in every corner of downtown. There are still 30,000 parking spaces that will be serviced by a paystation,” Patterson said.

massimo.deluca-taronno@freepress.mb.ca