Peter Black

April 10, 2024

Local Journalism Initiative reporter

peterblack@qctonline.com

The Ville de Québec is replacing all its current parking meters with new terminals based on licence plate numbers.

The replacement program, announced in an April 4 news release, begins this week with installers working sector by sector to switch 143 old terminals for new ones. The work is expected to be completed by the end of the month, at an estimated cost of $3.4 million.

Coun. Pierre-Luc Lachance, the executive committee member responsible for transport and mobility, said, “The current system has reached a stage of technological obsolescence, and our objective was to proactively respond to the needs of citizens while improving their user experience.”

He said, “by adopting licence plate payment technology, our city is aligning itself with innovative practices observed in other large metropolises around the world.”

With a licence-plate-number-based system, payment is based on the vehicle, not the parking space. Thus, people can move from one parking spot to another without having to pay again as long as the time on the initial meter has not expired.

The new system offers other advantages including “the possibility of stopping the time, the addition of time without overlapping, the registration of several license plates, the sending of alerts when time has expired and easy access to history.

Parking enforcement will be carried out using cars equipped with licence-plate-reading cameras. A parking ticket will still be printed and placed on the windshield of the offending vehicle.

The system will be deployed first on Ave. Maguire and Ave. Myrand in Sillery before being rolled out to (in order) Limoilou, Saint-Roch, Vieux-Port, Vieux-Québec and finally Saint-Jean-Baptiste.

During the transition period, parking in the affected sectors will be free.

Once the payment holiday is lifted, rates will remain at the current $3 for 60 minutes. The city has also standardized the hours when parking is paid on its territory. Unless otherwise noted, on-street parking is chargeable daily from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. It also eliminated the notion of maximum length of time for parking.

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The Ville de Québec is replacing city parking meters with new ones based on licence plate numbers. 

Photo from Radio-Canada/Louis Gagné