ALBANY — Commuters take note: The city's long-awaited downtown permit parking system is finally slated to take effect Oct. 1.

City officials are eyeing that date as the Common Council prepares to take the final step Monday needed to sign off on the system, approving the long list of streets that all or parts of which will be subject to the new permit system.

That proposed list, which could still be changed before Monday's vote, can be found here

Broadly, the new system would be in effect from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays and affect three zones within three-quarters of a mile of the Capitol. Those zones include the Center Square, Hudson/Park, Park South, Washington Park, Mansion, Pastures and Ten Broeck Triangle neighborhoods.

The system allows up to 2,750 street parking spaces in those zones to be designated as permit-only for downtown residents.

But in practice, all spaces will be open to short-term parking for up to two hours to anyone, with stays longer than that requiring a $25 annual permit issued by the city clerk's office to residents of those zones or more limited permits available business owners. Violations will carry a $45 fine.

The permits will likely take the form of bar-coded decals pasted in car windows, and to be eligible for one residents will have to show some kind of documentation that they live in one of the affected zones. Temporary guest permits will also be available.

Just over 75 percent of the spaces subject to permit parking, 2,070 of them, fall in Zone A — the one surrounding Center Square — with 525 assigned to the Mansion and Pastures neighborhoods and 155 assigned to the Ten Broeck Triangle.

Not every space on the affected blocks will be designated as permit-only. Some spots on certain blocks will left open for anyone, said Councilman Richard Conti, who represents Zone A and has pushed hard for the system.

Parking spaces adjacent to commercial properties, like those on Lark Street, will be open to anyone.

Monday's council vote will come almost exactly two years since the city finally won authorization for the system from the state Legislature after decades of fierce resistance from the unions that represent state workers, who often snag on-street parking spaces and stay there all day to the chagrin of downtown residents.

One of the compromises the city needed to make in order to win the blessing of state lawmakers was to limit the program to a two-year pilot that will be re-evaluated presumably sometime in 2014.

Between now and Oct. 1, the city will begin erecting the signs needed to alert motorists to the new rules and finalizing the internal process by which permits will be handed out, Conti said.

jcarleo-evangelist@timesunion.com • 518-454-5445 • @JCEvangelist_TU