It is a slow start but the pay-by-phone concept now being introduced in Toronto brings a very much needed return to genuine service in the City’s collection of money for parking. For many years, the mechanics and frankly the morality of public parking in Toronto has gone straight down hill. The introduction of paper receipts and the loss of the local portability of time made it more time-consuming, more expensive and combined with aggressive ticketing, more perilous to park on Toronto streets. The expectation that citizens engaged in their important business would reasonably be able to keep track of time and somehow get back to the meter to avoid a ticket was laughable. Simple user-pay was transformed into gotcha buddy. Stephen LeDrew on CP24 gave voice to this truth when he observed today that there were going to be a lot of frustrated enforcement officers. Well, these public employees may or may not be frustrated but it is clear that with pay-by-phone, when it is fully implemented, ordinary taxpayers will get what they bargain for, pay for the time they use and be free from the impact on their wallets of gotcha ticketing. Much comment today makes the point that pay-by-phone is easier than the present system. Yes, but the present system is an abomination. The new one is not a single thing less than the City owes its taxpayers. Pay-by-phone enters trial program at Green P
