Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Montreal Parking Meter Wars

Restaurateurs are begging the city to give their customers a break on Saturday afternoon until Sunday night. Business is tough enough and they they say that the meters are a factor in keeping customers away from the downtown core.

In a 'Let them eat cake quarters' comment, Montreal city councilor Marvin Rotrand intimated that parking meter fees could be higher and cited Vancouver and Calgary as examples.

How much does the city depend on the parking meter revenues?......Not much, if you look at the figures.

According to the private company (Stationnement Montreal) that is responsible for Montreal's parking revenues, the city has over 16,000 parking meters which took in about $50 million last year.

The City's annual budget is $4 billion and so parking meters represent just 1.2% of city revenues.
If the city was to give in the the demands of the restaurateurs it would lower city revenues by a less than ¼ of one percent.

By the way, once I calculated this all out, I was left with other interesting facts about parking meters, which you may find interesting;

Average daily revenue of each parking meter is $8.42 and if we assume an average hourly rate of a $1.75 (a guess), it means that the meters are each being used for an average of a little more than 4.2 hours per day.

I would have guessed more...a lot more.

Those downtown meters charge $3 an hour, and are busy all day, aside from the double-charging factor (where customers don't use up all their allotted time.) They gotta be taking in $40 a day, easily. That mean that the other meters in the city are taking in only a buck or two per day....hmmm, I'm not so sure.

Speaking of parking meters, I parked at this Westmount meter and checked the sign to see if I had to pay, since it was Sunday.

I studied the sign for a lot longer than I should of had to, trying to figure out what the heck this sign means;

'LUNDI - DIMANCHE 7h-22h

TOUT AUTRE TEMPS 4H MAX'

Could somebody explain to me what it means?
Does it mean Monday and Sunday only or does it mean all week long?
Usually a dash indicates from/to, as in Mon-Fri, which I could readily understand, but if that's the case, LUNDI-DIMANCHE is a confusing way to say 'every day'.

If it's just Monday and Sunday, shouldn't Sunday be first and then Monday, as in the days of the week and shouldn't the dash be replaced by a comma.

9 comments:

  1. EVERYDAY (mon-sun), you must pay between 7am and 10pm. Any other time (after 10pm, before 7am), parking is maximun 4hrs (but free).

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  2. Parking meter notice in french only.
    If you're not french, you're welcome to go back to your own country.
    That's racism, that's colonialism, that's a lack of respect for people.

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  3. Lack of respect?Is it written in french in New york?? Visca Catalunya lliure!

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  4. All hail the language Nazis!

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  5. It's a friggin french place here, since the friggin 1500s...Parle francais ou chrisse ton camp!

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  6. Do you still feel Montreal it's a french place? Wait for a another 2-3 years... and you will see that Montreal is no longer french. I am not even sure that half the population is speaking french as a first language. Bilingual sign posts would be welcomed.

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  7. I live here and there are two official languages french and english the buddy that has the nerve to say go back to your own country doesn't have a clue that he lives in CANADA and yes most places across this country of ours use both languages and bilingual sign posts should be in place for all our "visitors" and Montreal is a muilt language place not just the two

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  8. Learn to read (Aimed at last comment) he wasnt saying go back to your own country.

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  9. It's true, I live on the south-shore and I will not go into the city because it costs so much to park and on the south-shore, in order to take the metro, I still have to drive and park so just to go to dinner it already costs about 20 dollars.

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