By Beryl Wajsman, Institute for Public Affairs of Montreal
Monday, April 16, 2007
This past Thursday the "Assez C'est Assez – Enough is Enough" Citizens Coalition against the parking meter hikes that the Institute has been working with held its first press conference. Pulled together by Sharon Freedman, the conference demonstrated both the geographic breadth of the coalition and the diversity of members from ordinary citizens to leading businessmen. The Coalition also made public its petition drive which is continuing and now numbers some 15,000 names. All areas of the city were represented from the Plateau to Ahuntsic; from Snowdon to Mount Royal east; from little Italy to the downtown core. In addition to the meter hikes, rising taxes and the new "cleanliness" penalties were also criticized.
As the Gazette's Ren Bruemmer pointed out in his Friday article, City Hall, as expected, rejected the Coalition's demands. But names will continue to be collected and city council meetings will continue to be attended by the coalition's leaders demanding change. Defending the city's actions, councillor Marvin Rotrand fell back on discredited excuses.
Rotrand's first claim was that most Montrealers felt parking rates were too low. I haven't met a Montrealer like that. Have you? Does he really expect to be taken seriously when he claims that consumers of public services feel they are paying too little? He went on to state that this was the first rise in ten years and our rates are still below the national average. Aside from being half-truths, he neglects to address the fact that our municipal taxes are also the highest in North America reaching the levels of the Dor administration in the 90's that saw almost 20% of downtown Montreal storefronts empty.
He then claimed that the rate hikes were designed to encourage a regular flow of vehicles and were done for the sake of the merchants. We haven't met one merchant who wants them and indeed just in the downtown core Freedman collected hundreds of signatures from every leading store. No merchant wants to see customers running out to feed meters - or leaving and not coming back - because of the odious 2-hour limit.
Rotrand then used the green argument suggesting that the rates will encourage use of mass transit and help the environment. Yet he should well know that the leading study done in this field was authored by Wendell Cox, former Chair of Policy and Planning for the American Mass Transit Association, and presented in Montreal last summer by the Montreal Economic Institute and demonstrated that no city has been able to reduce car use by more than 2% through any combination of rate hikes or mass transit growth.
Rotrand went on to say that there have been no complaints from the city's merchant associations. Of course not. Because they are run by the city's economic development commissions yet the Quartier Latin's director Claude Rainville did complain to La Presse about the hikes. And hundreds of individual members of merchants associations have signed the "Assez C'est Assez" petition.
Rotrand then made the Marie-Antoinettish statement that people are "willing to pay a few extra quarters". But it's not the quarters. It's the time restrictions that make it almost as expensive to park as it is to see a movie or grab a light meal. That translates into dollars not quarters. What's worse is that the free parking after six that was meant to encourage business during the slow nights of Monday to Wednesday – and the family day of Sunday - has been eliminated. And that's what's hurting about 30% of businesses and irritating citizens. People are even getting tickets while they are in houses of worship because they can't run out during services.
It's the money Marvin! There's no more left! Your administration has bled the city dry!
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