Revenues from Montreal parking meters are still down sharply compared to the pre-pandemic period in the metropolis. Last year, the City earned $39.3 million in revenue from these payment terminals, two-thirds of the pre-COVID-19 level. But the city is planning a strong comeback in 2022.
Posted at 12:00 a.m.
“We expect a return to normal, even an acceleration of the cruising speed concerning income, insofar as we come out of the pandemic and that there is a certain return to normal life”, affirms the person in charge. transport and mobility to the executive committee, Sophie Mauzerolle, in an interview with The Press.
According to the annual report released Tuesday by the Sustainable Mobility Agency (AMD) – formerly Stationnement de Montréal – the City’s parking meter revenues continue to suffer from COVID-19. By 2020, parking meter revenue had fallen sharply, from 60.1 million in 2019 to 33.1 million. Then, last year, they increased slightly, returning to 39.3 million. During these two years, it should be remembered that free parking measures had been imposed in the city centre.
Since 2011, parking meter revenues in Montreal have hovered around $60 million. This figure is also the average revenue generated annually by the City, from 2011 to 2019.
Mme Mauzerolle recalls, however, that the creation of the AMD has shaken up the ways of doing things. “Before, Stationnement de Montréal was primarily a revenue collection agency. It was a bit of a cash cow. There, with the Agency, we first want to optimize the management of parking, by reworking the sharing of the street, and by making more room for other forms of mobility, public spaces, terraces. All of this is included in the reflection, ”she recalls.
Innovate and “calculate better”
Between 2020 and 2021, there were also around fifty fewer parking meters in the metropolis, in particular due to the withdrawal of parking spaces on axes such as Saint-Denis or Peel. “We want to do something other than just collect money,” continues Mme Mauzerolle, saying he wanted to “put the right tools in the right places”.
“We can think of modular pricing, to adjust the price according to the realities. In less dense sectors, the tariff would be lower, and conversely higher in denser sectors,” she maintains. A first pilot project for the “pooling” of spaces also took place at the end of 2020. The pooling of parking spaces avoids leaving spaces vacant during the day, when residents leave for work, for example.
Montreal also plans to make permanent another pilot project: automated plate reading, which collects data on the origin of vehicles and their circulation on the territory, in real time. AMD CEO Laurent Chevrot also plans to launch a mobile application within two to five years to make more real-time data available to Montrealers.
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 in real time. And we think it will have a very strong impact on people’s behavior.
Laurent Chevrot
“In North America, it is often said that 30% of downtown congestion is generated by people looking for a space. In Montreal, there is clearly a good part that comes from there. Parking can become a lever for mobility planning,” insists the CEO.
A hole of almost 15 million
In total, the Sustainable Mobility Agency – which has officially existed since 2020 – spent more than 36 million last year, a significant increase compared to the 28.8 million spent two years ago.
This year, however, the $36 million in expenses represents a considerable deviation from the budget projections, because in its 2021 financial statements, the paramunicipal organization planned to spend $51 million instead.
It is that like many public institutions and organizations, the AMD had not anticipated that the COVID-19 pandemic would last more than a year. “It’s good news that we spent less than expected, but it must be said that the pandemic really meant that we postponed certain expenses to the following years, in particular the increase in parking staff,” explains Mr Chevrot.
According to him, spending will start to rise again in the next year. “We should this time get closer to the amount that has been budgeted. But we will not be in an explosion of costs, rather in a reasoned growth, ”he concludes.