Sudbury considering changes to downtown parking

Parking illegally might be a little harder to do in Sudbury's downtown core in the years ahead.

The city if considering removing parking meters and replacing them with different machines.

"People just don't carry cash around anymore," Shawn Turner, the city's director of assets and fleet service said.

"One of the other problems we have with the current meters is that enforcement of our two-hour maximum on street parking is a bit of problem because it's tough to constantly monitor whether a car has been sitting for two hours, four hours or ten hours."

He says the city is looking at using pay-by-plate machines. Those machines issue little dashboard tickets using licence plates, similar to the system setup in municipal lots.

Turner says one of the reasons staff is studying the idea is because too many people are overstaying the posted two-hour time limit.

"So it wouldn't be a machine per meter, it would be a hub," he said.

"They would be strategically located within select areas so that they are convenient for a number of spots."

No simple solution

Another option to ease parking concerns include a possible pedestrian overpass across the railway tracks, connecting Energy Court on Lorne Street to Elgin Street, to give people better access to the spots already there.

Jeff McIntyre, chair of Downtown Sudbury, says there's not one simple solution to the parking woes in the city's core.

"We need to make sure we manage the right amount of space at the right time, for the right people," he said.

"That's going to be a complicated formula that always needs to be adjusted."

McIntyre says business owners have also been working with the city to get re-vamped parking metres installed downtown.

Those would allow users more flexibility, like feeding the metres with a credit card.

Staff is expecting to have a report ready for city council by next summer.