The parking meter issue is not dead as yet

Apr 09, 2017 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The parking meter issue is not dead as yet. The City Council has indicated that it had some discussions with the parking meter company. It also said that discussions will be held with councilors and later with members of the public. The government, judging from the fulminations of functionaries and a middle-page spread in last Sunday’s newspapers on parking meters, clearly feels that parking meters have some value in managing traffic.
The council does not seem interested in challenging the Order which was made by the Minister of Communities rescinding the by-laws relating to parking meters. It is interesting that the City Council, which in the past was more than willing to contest the actions of the PPP Minister of Local Government, has not tried to challenge the legality of the recent Ministerial Order, even though it has a legal opinion which provides material for them to at least raise some questions. But, as we know, there are different strokes for different folks.
Parking meters are going to reappear. The parking meter company has not disappeared. Its machines are still visible around the city. The enthusiastic ‘clampers’ have been laid off. But the company itself has not walked. It is waiting things out. Within the next three months, the Council will have to arrive at a decision. But what other decision will they arrive at when they approved the revised parking meter contract and when they did nothing during the weeks of protest by citizens.
The three-month suspension of the parking meter by-laws meant that the protestors no longer had reason to protest. The court action, against the parking meters, is still proceeding on the basis of the legality of the system and the by-laws.
The Movement Against Parking Meters, which has instigated the protests, has been off the streets now for a few weeks. The group may never be able to muster the energy to come back on. It is easy to call protest action. It is hard to resume it after it would have been called off.
In the last few weeks of the protests, it was more entertainment than objection. The government by suspending the parking meter by-laws may have unintentionally done City Hall a favour. The Movement Against Parking Meters may have been neutralized by this action.
The government by running that ill-advised feature in last Sunday’s newspapers may be signaling that there is support within its ranks for some arrangement involving parking meters. The Council can take this as a signal to go ahead and renegotiate its contract with the parking meter company.
The Council has signed a bad contract. It does not really need the parking meter company. It can employ, as has been suggested by one letter writer to the newspapers, a sticker system, whereby persons pay an annual fee for parking at the same time as they take out their vehicle licence. This sticker should constitute a right to free parking, but does not guarantee a parking spot. The fee can be $10,000 per year and there are persons who are going to buy such a sticker. Under such a system, City Hall does not have to spend a single cent.
The City Hall’s problems are however bigger. It has a signed contract which is considered extremely favourable to the parking meter company. The company is not going to walk away from this deal. Who is going to walk away from such a deal?
City Hall should therefore renegotiate along the lines of reduced tariffs, reduced fines and allowing private firms to establish private parking lots for their employees. This seems to be the only option now open to City Hall.
All of that of course is dependent on what the court decides. If the court says that the parking meter system is illegal, then the ball is thrown right back into the hands of government, who will have to decide whether it will approve revised parking meter by-laws. From the indications in the media, the government may be inclined to do so.

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