Montreal City Weblog

Kate 14:44 on 2020-09-30 Permalink Reply  

• Joey 15:53 on 2020-09-30 Permalink

  They’ve also negotiated (and are working on more) street-priced spaces inside empty parking garages, which is about as close to magically creating more parking spaces downtown as you can get…

• DeWolf 17:10 on 2020-09-30 Permalink

  I can understand complaints about parking on the Plateau, because it can be difficult, but parking downtown is ridiculously easy as long as you don’t expect to find a spot for free. There are literally thousands and thousands of underground spaces. Even in normal times it’s not hard to park downtown.

• Mark Côté 17:18 on 2020-09-30 Permalink

  Weird contrast to the stories of how deserted downtown currently is and how much more it will become…

• Ian 17:22 on 2020-09-30 Permalink

  Agreed 100% with DeWolf, even if you just google “parking near me” you see all the lots downtown and even before the pandemic it was fairly easy to find spots any time. There’s even free street parking to be had in some parts of downtown, depending what time of day you’re there. You may have to walk a couple of blocks but big deal.

• Kevin 18:05 on 2020-09-30 Permalink

  I think the issue is locating these underground spots. The on-street lots are well-marked — but not the ones under buildings.

• Thibault 18:20 on 2020-09-30 Permalink

  @kevin going south on Berri after rue Ontario there is a big sign showing the name and the realtime available parking spots for three nearby parking lots. I didn’t look too closely but one of them I know is an underground parking lot. There must be more of these signs around the downtown.

• Joey 18:33 on 2020-09-30 Permalink

  But the indoor lots are very expensive during working hours (note they often charge by the quarter-hour). Evenings and weekends are a better deal, with rates more or less in line with outdoor metred spaces, assuming you’re staying around for at least a couple of hours.

• Ian 07:49 on 2020-10-01 Permalink

  Many, actually. All the big parking lots have signs all over indicating that you re coming up to one from kilometres away, and once you’re there you can see if it has spots or not. I think the point of this app is more that some of the less well-known parking garages that aren’t normally part of the big green P system are now being shown, like hotels, etc.

  FWIW this already exists though, there are I’m not sure why the city has to get involved with an app… you could use parkopedia for instance – there’s also an app version of aprkopedia. Unless this is all just an exercise in optics, I suppose.

  Plus, as Mark points out, there are tons of parking spaces downtown these days.I think we just found another way the city could have saved some money in these troubled times.

• Joey 08:43 on 2020-10-01 Permalink

  @Ian the city needs to be involved in the app because they have negotiated cheap rates in certian buildings and you need to enter a code in the app to park there. Also, my experience this summer (weekly appointments in the Sun Life building during office hours) has been that street parking has been extremely scarce in that part of downtown. I’ve often thought, circling around, that the office buildings probably had dozens of empty spaces that could be madea avilable, glad to see it’s happening.

• Ian 09:15 on 2020-10-02 Permalink

  I concede the point as you’re right, thee are lots of parking spaces going unused in private corporate garages. That said, I never have a problem finding parking downtown – though I might have to walk a couple of blocks. It’s certainly a lot easier than finding parking on a residential street in a stickered neighbourhood on a snow clearing day.