New Street Parking System

Victoria is now implementing a new parking system on downtown streets. The blue post above indicates a parking space with a specific number. A little further up the street you can see the device on the left, which is where you pay for your parking space. It takes coins or credit cards or a parking card you can buy from the city. That little panel on the top provides solar power. On the right is a close-up of the payment panel. You can find out more about this new system by visiting the City of Victoria website.

Street Furniture I - Parking Meters

I tend to get into a rut with landscape photos and forget or ignore all those little things that just don't register because I see them every day. So, I've lined up a number of posts I'm calling Street Furniture. Many of these things are probably global and I hope people will comment on similar things they have in their cities. Today's post is something that is found on all our streets in the downtown core, parking meters. Two bits (25 cents) buys you ten minutes. A loonie (one dollar coin) rents you a parking space for 50 minutes. There are meter readers who check for expired meters and if your car is parked longer than you have paid for, you will be given a parking ticket. I'm not sure how much the fine is now but it used to be twenty dollars. While I suspect they earn a little income for the city and also serve to regulate parking to some extent, I think these meters contribute to the problem of downtown core decay that many major cities are experiencing. Though our culture is becoming a little less car-oriented, most people still depend on their cars to get them to where they can shop. I suspect a major advantage of suburban malls over downtown stores is that the former offer extensive free parking. These parking meters are a deterrent to shopping downtown. They don't create any additional parking space, they only add expense and risk to the downtown shopping experience. Seems foolish to me. (or maybe not so foolish - click "comments" below to see some other points of view.)

In Chinatown, the posts that hold the meters upright are painted bright red, as in the photo to the left. The rest of Victoria's meters are on metallic gray posts.