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So McKeen is proposing that the city install some of its new E-Park parking machines on particularly busy residential streets, in neighbourhoods such as Oliver, Westmount and Strathcona. Parking, he suggests, should be for a maximum of two hours, to encourage customer turnover. People who live on the street wouldn’t have to pay, he says, but their visitors would.

There are already limits to that laissez-faire parking freedom. In certain neighbourhoods — Garneau, near the University of Alberta campus, or McCauley, near Commonwealth Stadium — there are already strict restrictions on parking for non-residents or places where you can’t park for more than two hours.

Still, it would be a big psychological leap for Edmontonians to wrap their heads around the used to paying to park on side streets. McKeen knows many people would blast the city for money-grubbing. But to ease the pain, McKeen suggests parking money collected in a residential community might be earmarked for local community improvements.

McKeen’s idea is just that at the moment — an idea, one that city parking planners are just starting to kick around. But it’s a smart idea, one we should definitely start discussing. We want areas like West Jasper Ave and 124th Street to succeed, and to do that, we need vibrant businesses and places for customers to park. But we also can’t swamp and overwhelm the surrounding residential neighbourhoods which gives those shopping districts so much of their distinctive charm.

We need to strike a balance.

And yes, that may mean we’ll have to start paying for road parking we’ve already expected to be free. And we’re not going to like it. But it may be the best way to ration finite parking spots fairly for everyone.

“There will always be pressure for parking in those areas,” McKeen says. “and I don’t know how to allocate those spaces except by paying.”

psimons@edmontonjournal.com

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