About parking in Canadian cities
A story about how parking in Canadian cities works. Are they paid, and how affordable are they?
Hello, dear friends, today I want to answer a question about parking. People ask me, is it true that there are paid parking lots everywhere in Canada? How easy is it to find a free one? Is it difficult or not difficult? And what is the cost of the pleasure of parking?
Payback is imminent
Let's start with the big and important thing. I can say that it is true that Canada has a very developed system of paid parking. And in those places where it is developed, where it is present, specifically in those cities where it is present, there are excellent services that are responsible for controlling the enforcement of parking, let's say. That is, that all those people who park in places that need to be paid for, pay for these places.
Accordingly, if the seats are not paid, then depending on which city, in which municipality, in which district you are standing, you will be issued a fine. Let's say the minimum fine in Montreal is $25 CAD. If you're parked somewhere very, very posh, somewhere in an expensive neighborhood where it's either illegal to park or parking is very expensive, you might get a $80 CAD fine.
My personal record is that because I parked in the Mont-Royal district in the wrong, shall we say, place, that is, I parked after the sign stating that you can park here, I got a fine of $86 CAD, if memory serves. So much for that simple pleasure.
Looking for free parking
How ubiquitous is this topic? I can say that in cities with a population of, say, more than 20,000-30,000, there are paid seats everywhere. That is, not everywhere, but they do exist. If we're talking about million-dollar cities, I know for a fact about Montreal and Toronto that all that belongs to downtown, all that belongs to the bedroom communities are paid parking zones, especially downtown, especially downtown. I've never seen any free spaces there. But it's good that there's all sorts of underground parking, which, in principle, helps.
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