Motorcycle Parking Fees Recommended without Notice or Public Consultation | Page 45 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Motorcycle Parking Fees Recommended without Notice or Public Consultation

The only thing that would make sense is to charge a lower rate in the designated areas and a regular car rate outside. But that would just make it more complicated.

That would be the easiest thing for the City to do. Just have a machine programmed with the lower rate beside the dedicated spaces, but it certainly wouldn't be fair or make sense. If the dedicated spaces are full and you park your bike 10' away in a regular space, why should you pay 2 - 4 times as much? That puts pressure to crowd the dedicated spaces which could potentially lead to damaged bikes. What about areas where the City has not bothered to provide dedicated spaces. If the regular parking rate is higher downtown than it is on Queen St. in the Beach, why should a motorcycle pay more in the Beach then downtown just because the City hasn't distributed dedicated spaces everywhere paid spaces are located.

The dedicated spaces were a response to scooter parking on the sidewalks. Scooter riders said they parked on the sidewalk because of lack of available space on the street, concerns over damage from cars, and because they were the sames size as e-bikes, which were allowed to park on the sidewalks. Any type of charging, especially full rate charging is going to exacerbate that problem.
 
Rebelrider1, Nazz's email isn't on your post. If you have something directly from him, please post it. Or if you are concerned about making it public, please PM me with the details & I'll keep it confidential.

Hey Face,
My response wasn't from Nazz. I'm in contact with Janet Davis.
I went last year to city council when they were to reveiw this and I'll be there again. I don't think enough people are fighting this, and when it gets implemented they are all going to ***** and wine. I would love to see at least 100 people turn out!
 
What day/time is the meeting again? I can probably swing by.

I looked back in the thread trying to find it, but I must be missing the post where it's stated you guys need warm bodies in council.

Besides, maybe I'll get to scare Dougie again!
 
No meeting is scheduled. This re-surfaced because staff announced that the program to charge motorcycles was starting (see post 814 & this link to the City TV story) even though Council removed that permission from the staff recommendations.

http://www.citynews.ca/2014/11/04/ci...cycle-parking/

We're currently trying to hold these senior staff members accountable for defying Council, but so far, not much has happened.
 
Update:

I've heard back from both the Ombudsman's and City Manager's Offices. I've discussed our concerns with the City Manager's Office staff person who understands the issue and will be asking Stephen Buckley, General Manager of Transportation Services and Naz Capano's boss, to get back to me within the next week. Good start, I'll update on this thread after I've spoken with Mr. Buckley.
 
Thanks Face! Keep us updated and let us know how we can contribute.

Update:

I've heard back from both the Ombudsman's and City Manager's Offices. I've discussed our concerns with the City Manager's Office staff person who understands the issue and will be asking Stephen Buckley, General Manager of Transportation Services and Naz Capano's boss, to get back to me within the next week. Good start, I'll update on this thread after I've spoken with Mr. Buckley.
 
Stephen Buckley is away on holidays this week, but Naz Capano called and we had a good chat. Key points of the conversation include:

- The charging issue is coming from TPA, where Transportation Services is more focused on the dedicated m/c spaces pilot program.

- He knows that a by-law would be required to start charging for parking, and he says that the way City TV presented it did not necessarily reflect the process that would be required to implement charging.

- He understands our position, which is that Council took away the direction for staff to pursue charging, and will discuss this with TPA when they next meet.

- He recognizes that if charging is to be considered, 1/4 the rate of cars is more proportionate than 1/2, where both were referred to in the staff report.

- He agrees that motorcycles need to be fairly treated across the City, not just with a possible lower rate only in the dedicated spaces.

- He recognizes that a number of the issues around this have not been considered, including the cost benefit analysis related outfitting every machine with the ability to charge separate rates for motorcycles and cars. Originally the TPA was only thinking about separate machines marked for motorcycles next to the dedicated spaces and set at lower rates. They hadn't figured out how to deal with bikes across the rest of the City.

- He says that he only took responsibility for this recently and was not aware that the those of us who wrote to Transportation and Clerks staff back when Councillor DelGrande brought forward the motion in 2011 were never consulted or notified when the last October 2013 report came forward. I asked that if this they still intend to pursue this, that all people who wrote to Council, both back in 2011 and 2013 be contacted and consulted, and he agreed.

- I indicated that even if staff (TPA &/or Transportation Services) were considering bring back the issue of charging, it is not appropriate to bring it back now or in the near future given that Council pulled that part of the recommendation.

- We talked about the difficulty studying the dedicated parking when no enforcement was taking place.

Transportation Services & TPA staff will be meeting to discuss this some time before the Christmas break, and he has promised to get back to me after that meeting. I expressed my hope that once all these things are properly considered, that staff would agree to not pursue the issue of charging any further. Once a direction have been determined, I suggested that it would be appropriate to have some form of public announcement, given the "misunderstandings" created by the City TV report.

I'll post more once I've heard back after the meeting.
 
Well done. Thank you for raising the point of the futility of a study that doesn't enforce its conditions.
 
Thanks Face for the information and your work in obtaining it.
 
Face - I think we all owe you a drink! Either way it goes, you have been very well spoken and put a lot of hard work into this.
 
Face - I think we all owe you a drink! Either way it goes, you have been very well spoken and put a lot of hard work into this.

Thanks, hopefully we can have that drink when we have something to celebrate!
 
Thanks, hopefully we can have that drink when we have something to celebrate!

Come Spring, I think we all daily downtown parkers owe Face a night out... You Rock Face....!

Thanks for keeping us posted and following up with the city!
 
Come Spring, I think we all daily downtown parkers owe Face a night out... You Rock Face....!

Thanks for keeping us posted and following up with the city!

Thanks, you won't need to twist my arm.
 
Naz Capano returned my call today, and we discussed the meeting they had with TPA.

Charging for parking

TPA is planning on reporting in the Fall of 2015 about ways to implement charging for street parking for motorcycles. It would not be financially viable to retrofit every on-street machine for a 2-fare structure, so they are looking at apps and texting for pay-by-plate and even some form of harness to secure a pay-and-display ticket. They are talking about 1/4 the rate for cars. I asked about public consultation , and Naz's first response was the standard deputation process for any report to Committee. But as the discussion went on, we talked more about a process of meetings inviting people who have expressed interest with the City, so that staff could hear actual users reactions to different options. If they try to avoid it, all that will happen is that Committee will send them back to do it anyway when a large group of riders show up to complain about a lack of consultation.

Btw Sikter, your petition is having an effect. Naz got a bunch of names in the beginning, and is getting a few more every week. If you haven't already signed, here's the link.

https://www.change.org/p/john-tory-please-maintain-free-motorcycle-parking-in-toronto

One of the issues the TPA has is with motorcycles parking all day. The intention is that street spaces are meant to be short term (most streets are signed with a 2-hour limit), and the concern is that all day parkers are making it more difficult for short term (motorcycle or car) parkers to find spaces. I raised the point that a number of parking garages don't allow motorcycles, so long term motorcycle parking options are difficult to find. I also noted that one of the benefits of a parking app was the ability to extend pay-by-plate parking remotely from the app, which would be counter productive to enforcing short term limits.

I also raised the question about instituting special procedures for riders, as a way around the unjustifiably large cost of making the street machines work fairly for both riders and drivers. Given the benefits to the City of motorcycle vs car commuting, they shouldn't be making it more difficult for riders to pay.

By the end of the discussion, we got back to the question about whether the TPA and/or Works staff actually have a mandate to proceed with charging motorcycles, or if that was taken away when Council changed the recommendation back in October 2013. As the TPA seems bound and determined to find some way to charge riders, I told Naz that I would be following up with the City Manager about the mandate issue in the new year. There seems to be some confusion about rolls as TPA is normally the operations side of things, and Policy comes from City Works and Transportation staff.

Dedicated parking spaces

Naz and his staff will continue to watch the dedicated parking spaces, and will be reporting at some point about bringing forward a by-law which will allow them to enforce penalties against cars that uses these areas. They will even be watching through the winter to see how much motorcycle use they get. Depending on the results, they could look at year round dedication, or just between certain months. He mentioned that Montreal's dedicated spaces are from April 1st to October 31st.
 
[...]
Dedicated parking spaces

Naz and his staff will continue to watch the dedicated parking spaces, and will be reporting at some point about bringing forward a by-law which will allow them to enforce penalties against cars that uses these areas. They will even be watching through the winter to see how much motorcycle use they get. Depending on the results, they could look at year round dedication, or just between certain months. He mentioned that Montreal's dedicated spaces are from April 1st to October 31st.
I read all of it. Nice of you to discuss this and discuss the interest of "the community" but this last part i've put in bold makes me scratch my head a lot.

It's like saying "let's see how much usage the grocery store gets during the night to determine how viable of an option it is to expand business during business hours"
 
I read all of it. Nice of you to discuss this and discuss the interest of "the community" but this last part i've put in bold makes me scratch my head a lot.

It's like saying "let's see how much usage the grocery store gets during the night to determine how viable of an option it is to expand business during business hours"

No, it's about whether it's worth keeping them dedicated to motorcycles through the winter. If we don't use them, why not let cars park there off season. They want to see if there are enough winter riders to justify having them reserved year round, or to see if our riding season lasts longer than Montreal. Mississauga City Hall has a few spots in its underground garage reserved for motorcycles, but only from May through October.
 
Lots of good in there Face, thanks.

What are the scooter people doing about this? Do you know?
 

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