Prince George city council's decision to revert to paid hourly parking in the downtown area is a misdirected assault that shouldn't be launched.
The battle is over ongoing abuse of on-street parking by employees of downtown businesses, from retail to professional and government offices, and the weaponry is a new and expensive parking fee collection system the city plans to install.
The damage will be high.
According to news reports, the hourly parking fee must be at least a dollar to cover the cost of the new parking system, meaning it will not be a moneymaker for the city.
Angry downtown merchants will experience a loss of business as a vengeful public acts out its frustration by not going downtown. Both will have long memories - at least as long as from now to the next civic election in the fall of 2014.
The gains? None, either in dollars or freed-up parking spaces. Some downtown workers will negotiate the cost of parking into their pay cheques, some will just have to pay it, but most or all will continue to clog parking spots near where they work - hourly fees or not.
A better tool would be a revised parking bylaw to allow penalties for repeat parking offenders, digitally photographing licence plates over a set time period - a few days - and sending the offenders their tickets by mail.
The current course of action will wipe away a lot of the benefit of previous efforts to rejuvenate the downtown. Translation: We'll be back to the days of more pleas for help, more well-intended plans to promote downtown growth, and more tax dollars from businesses and property-owners to fund them.
Roy Nagel
Prince George
