Parking in Toronto could get more expensive next month
A potential rate increase could bring in $2.56 million but would cost $500,000 to roll out
The Toronto Parking Authority board will vote next week on whether to increase most metered street-parking fees around the city.
Related: The city gave out more than $2 million in snow route parking tickets after January’s major storm
If the increase is approved, drivers can expect to pay 25 more cents per hour beginning this April, at least in the city’s most high-traffic areas. Parking locations with the lowest rates—about seven per cent of the city’s zones—would not be affected.
The increase would result in an extra $2.56 million in revenue, according to a report presented last month by the TPA president to its board of directors, though officials say it would cost $500,000 to implement the changes.
“The proposed rate increases will ensure that on-street locations are priced to encourage high turnover to serve the greatest number of customers and help support the city’s financial goals and investments in overall city programs and operations,” TPA president Scott Collier wrote in the report.
Currently, parking rates around Toronto range from $1.50 per hour to $6.75 per hour, the result of a previous rate adjustment in 2024.
Related: City council abruptly dissolved the Toronto Parking Authority board
Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
