Annual revenue of 500 million | Montreal called upon to price all its on-street parking by 2035

Montreal could release more than 500 million per year, on average, by pricing all its parking spaces on the street, according to the Regional Council for the Environment of Montreal (CRE-MTL). In its “white paper” on the occupation of the public domain, which will be published on Tuesday, the organization proposes to “change the culture” of parking in the metropolis.

“We especially want to concretely highlight the extent to which parking takes up considerable space and resources in Montreal. This is a fact recognized by everyone in the development and transportation community, but today it requires public discussion,” says the organization’s transportation manager, Blaise Rémillard.

His group calculates, based on a methodology proposed by the Victoria Transport Policy Institute which takes into account the cost of land and construction costs, that the average annual cost of a parking space is approximately $1,275 per year. for the City of Montreal. Multiplying this number by the number of free parking spaces, approximately 450,000, gives us $573.7 million.

“It’s the equivalent of an SRB,” says Mr. Rémillard jokingly, referring to the total bill of around 653 million for the rapid bus service on the Pie-IX axis.

To recover these funds, the organization suggests that the City “gradually price”, until 2035, all street parking spaces, “in order to eliminate their free” term. In the meantime, it is also proposed to “remove parking spaces that are not profitable because there are not enough motorists willing to pay the right price for their use”, and then “assign these spaces a new function benefit to the community”.

Better manage space

Waiting lists could also be put in place for residents-only on-street parking stickers (SRRR), in order to “prioritize certain households based on the lack of access to off-street parking and established criteria for dependence on the automobile”, suggests the Regional Council.

Because “everyone must do their part”, Mr. Rémillard asserts that the addition of parking spaces in existing residential buildings should also be prohibited. Its teams also call for “reducing the surface areas authorized for surface parking in new constructions, to favor parking in structures or underground”, and for “gradually tending towards the prohibition of surface parking”.

The CRE-MTL “white paper” also proposes implementing a “bonus-penalty system” for owners who wish to “innovate” by greening their parking lots or installing electrical terminals, for example. These owners would then see their parking tax rate decrease.

“We don’t want to take the car out of town. It’s simply to better choose where we want it and when we want it. The more the city goes on developing, the more the scarcity of space, we will have to manage it”, persists the manager, who suggests reinvesting the hundreds of millions that would be recovered in public transport, greening and the construction of affordable housing.

Modular pricing starting this year?

On the Montreal executive committee, the person in charge of mobility, Sophie Mauzerolle, affirms that the City “is not in the short term to adopt a unilateral vision of parking pricing”. “That said, pricing remains a lever for sustainable mobility for us,” she maintains.

The Sustainable Mobility Agency (AMD) also plans to launch a mobile application in the next two to five years to make more data available in real time for Montrealers, particularly on parking, in order to “refine” the debates. On the question. “Where are the seats? What are the regulations on each of them? Are there places in such a sector? This is the kind of question that we can answer. And we think it will have a very strong impact on people’s behavior,” AMD CEO Laurent Chevrot said last August.

Montreal also plans to implement a modular pricing project this year, which would change the price of parking on certain arteries depending on the time of day. “It would lead to a higher turnover rate, and for merchants, more customers. You have to put the right tool in the right place”, summarizes M^me Mauzerolle.

The City also plans to make permanent another pilot project: automated license plate reading, which makes it possible to collect data on the origin of vehicles and their circulation on the territory.

“Nor can we ask people to abandon their car if there are no alternatives. Everything also depends on stronger public transport networks, a more interesting car-sharing offer and a structuring cycling network”, concludes the elected official, who underlines that the arrival of the Metropolitan Express Network (REM) will also be an opportunity to “think about parking management on the edge of new stations”.