Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Parking Problems.... and then some..

On Tuesday I went Downtown as usual for lunch and I parked in front of City Hall on Kent Street and I had to go to the City cashier to get change for the meter. It took about 50 minutes for lunch so when I got back to the car the Commissioner was checking the meter and I was lucky enough to have 10 minutes left so I was sort of watching him as he went to write a ticket for the SUV in front of me but I noticed that once he seen the decal on the vehicle he avoided giving it a ticket and moved on to the next car. As it turned out the SUV belonged to the City and so I checked and the meter was empty so by that time the Commissioner went across the street and was ticket other cars. I decided to go over and ask him why he hadn't ticketed the City vehicle and he told me that "they didn't do that" and he couldn't really give me an explanation why but it didn't make any sense to me. If our commercial vehicles go Downtown on delivery we park them in a loading zone and if we happen to use a regular space then we are obligated to pay the meter so why the double standard? Now it may seem petty but I decided to go find my Councillor Rob Lantz who happened to be in the building and he came out to look at the situation and he couldn't explain why as well and by coincidence his own car was ahead of the SUV and it was ticketed. I'm sure some people are going to say well it's going into the same pocket but how do we know if it wasn't just an employee on his own time doing lunch Downtown as I often see Police cars parked in residential permitted spaces during lunch which also seems odd to me. And further to my point the City under the Mayor's direction "gave away too cheap" the parking spaces that belonged to City Hall where this unit could have been parked and not taking up a "customer space" from the Downtown merchants. As I previously said the City made a huge mistake when they didn't press the Federal Government to put an underground parking lot in the new Federal building and we're paying for it now.... hopefully the new parking study will bring forward some fresh ideas and free up some of the residential spaces during daytime hours…

3 comments:

Rob Lantz said...

Just for the record, I put 50c in my meter at exactly noon on my way to a meeting at City Hall. The meeting ran late, I got a ticket, and I paid it.
You have a point Tim, that City vehicle was parked in a public space, and that particular vehicle is driven for personal use when the employee is not working, so in effect he could never get a parking ticket, even on his own time, just because he has the City logo on the side. I spoke with City staff about it.

Anonymous said...

Tim
I have to say I don;t agree with you often. But I have to agree completely with you on this one.

It disgusts me when I see City Vehicles and Police Cars pulling into No Parking, Or Load Zones, or even at times Handicapp Parking Spots and the occupants going into a local to store the Tim's.

IT is like people know they don;t have to worry about being ticketed and so we can behave like we have some god given right to park where we want.

The RCMP are just as bad. I have never seen a Police Car at paid meter even when the Officers maybe sitting in the Tim's with 3 other Officers havinga coffee.

Time for some leadership to be shown by the people WE PAY.

Anonymous said...

Well, that is what happens when you don't build downtown. You could then walk to lunch. Stop complaining or by a bicycle.

Rest of you islanders, stop using your cars so much.