I recently started reading Donald Shoup's The High Cost of Free Parking and remembered the recent issues with introducing parking meters in the business districts in Waterdown and Stoney Creek. Here's a CBC radio piece about the issue.
Obviously the business owners are not fans of losing the free parking, but a solution Shoup mentions in his book to get businesses on board is to give the revenues to the area rather than into general revenues. One way in Hamilton would be to give the revenue to the local BIAs which could then use the funds for local improvements. The funds from the parking meters added to Gore Park now that the buses are gone should probably be used to improve the park, although the funds are pretty small.
Of course the city is desperate for revenue, so there's probably no way to keep these from general revenues. I'm actually surprised that the city hasn't extended the hours for parking meters around Augusta and Hess Village on Friday and Saturday night beyond 9 pm. All the surrounding parking lots have long since charged for these hours.
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