Guelph saying goodbye to parking lot gates

The City of Guelph is getting rid of parking gates. CTV’s Spencer Turcotte gets the details on a new parking system.

Soon enough, metal arms at municipal parking lots will become extinct as the City of Guelph says, “gone with the gates.”

“We’re removing all of the gates from our municipal lots in the City of Guelph, and transitioning to gateless parking structures and parking lots,” said Ashley Kassian, Guelph’s program manager of operations administration.

It comes down to aging infrastructure and eliminating barriers.

“If you have to pay at the gate, it creates a long line of traffic, which can be stressful for users,” said Kassian.

Drivers will be able to come and go more quickly. People who have a permit can continue to use it. Physical pay stations will still be an option, but one feature making this transition more seamless is a parking management platform called HONK Mobile.

“Anyone with a phone can access HONK whether they’ve downloaded the app or not,” said Michael Back, CEO and founder of HONK. “Anyone with a phone can scan a QR code or send a text to a short code and they have a parking metre in the palm of their hand.”

City enforcement staff will be able to check whether license plates are registered through the platform to ensure every vehicle in the lot has paid for parking.

HONK said they’ve also worked out kinks, which saw bad actors in other cities post fake QR codes.

“Every one of our QR codes is specifically branded and leads to a HONK website,” said Back. “All of HONK’s QR codes will be 10 feet or above in height, they’ll also be a size that is harder to replicate. The city’s folks will be checking all of the signs.”

As for hourly rates, they’ll stay the same after the gates disappear.

There is no cost to use the app but anyone using HONK Mobile online will have to pay a $0.35 service fee.

The city plans to have gates removed at parking lots in November, which is when new enforcement and payment systems will be in full effect.