Mark Richardson is doing an article on this for the Toronto Star Wheels Section. it could be in as early as this Saturday. From discussions, it seems that the following may be happening:
- The City seems to be leaning to charging bikes at 25% the rate of cars, not 25% or 50% as per the 2013 staff report;
- Pay-by-Plate may only come to app users. It looks like the machines on the streets will remain Pay-&-Display, even when individual machines need to be replaced. To many $$$s to switch the whole City over;
- They are looking to make the app as accessible as possible, even by text for those still working with flip-phone technology (not sure how that will work);
- The app would limit your additional payments to the max time allowed, i.e. 3 hours as per most signs;
- Pay-by-plate machines will most likely be installed next to the 300 dedicated M/C spaces;
- The trial of the dedicated spaces isn't going well. Looks like drivers have figured out that the dedicated spaces aren't being enforced;
- This may happen in the Fall, but we still need to keep watching the agenda.
Again, this is all hearsay now. Hopefully Mark's article will give more details, but again we won't know anything for sure until the staff report actually comes out.
Some thoughts on this direction:
- The decision about whether M/Cs should be charged or not doesn't seem to be a consideration, even though Council removed the direction to do this back in 2013. They are just trying to figure out how to do it and make more than they spend;
- 25% is fair, if we are going to be charged;
- If we want to get this rate, we need to sign up for an account with the City. See my review of the fine print at post 47 of this thread
http://www.gtamotorcycle.com/vbforu...ation-Thread&p=2275994&viewfull=1#post2275994
- For those who don't have this account, including visitors to the City, the old stolen ticket problems from before 2005 will be back (I'm assuming without the app, you will pay full rate and have to display a ticket)
- Day long commuter riders are going to get screwed the most by the 3 hour limit. This is worse for bikes as some underground garages don't allow bikes, and ones that do may charge 100% the rate of cars.
It would be most helpful if someone who works downtown could survey the parking garages to see which ones don't allow bikes, which ones do, and how much they charge. Unfortunately I don't work downtown. This would be really helpful info to have when it comes time to make deputations before Committee.