A couple of weeks ago, I drove down to Granville Island with my little boy to shop for a wedding gift. Parking was tricky as usual and I was happy to score a spot near Bridges. Unfortunately after seeing 3 hour parking signs all over the Island, I failed to notice that I was parking in a one hour zone until I returned to my car and found a parking ticket.

I was really angry. I won’t lie – my first thought was “Effing Vancouver!” I swore in front of my son and of course felt like crap as soon as I uttered the naughty words. It’s not like I didn’t look for a sign – I did – it was turned away from me and I missed it. $27 (or $48 after 3 days) is a pretty penny to pay for 2 hours of parking. Thank you City of Vancouver. I won’t be going down to Granville Island again anytime soon.

Here’s the thing. I am on a budget and I don’t need any expensive extra expenses like that – it makes me feel sick to my stomach when I see a ticket on my car. Nor do other families. Usually if I have to go to Vancouver I take the skytrain but occasionally I go somewhere that it makes more sense to drive.

Quite frankly we enjoy staying closer to home in the Tri-Cities where there are no nasty parking meters everywhere. Not yet.

I am concerned that the City of Port Moody is talking about implementing a city-wide pay parking model. I think it would be a shame if people have to pay to go to the park or to the recreation center and especially shameful if the City starts authorizing these heartless pay parking collectors to start passing out parking tickets to families who are already on a tight budget. Property taxes are already being increased by 5% this year. Some sort of road tax or transit tax is supposed to be on the way. How are families supposed to afford all this?

Quite frankly, if pay parking goes in at Rocky Point Park or the other places we like to go, I will head somewhere else where you don’t have to pay. What will you do?