The City of Surrey has revised its parking policy around the perimeter of Surrey Memorial Hospital. This campaign promise translates into a real improvement in the lives of those that visit SMH to support friends and family receiving treatment. The new two hours of free parking is certainly not the solution to the hospital pay parking problem, but the contribution is worthy of praise. What’s more, the city is taking the next logical step and asking the Fraser Health Authority to drop all parking fees at the main off-street parking lots. My blog goes into some detail about the problems that can occur when a controlled parking lot transitions to a free for all, however I suspect Fraser Health will reject the request anyway. The fact that the second largest city in the province is formally requesting a radical change in how the SMH parking lot is monetized is significant. If successful it would set a precedent sure to be followed by many other cities.
I truly feel it is time to eliminate paid parking or at least make it an reasonable daily rate. How can we expect persons in medical crisis to know how long they will be their. Or why would we want to prevent loved ones from visiting due to parking costs
Had cataract surgery, it took a bit longer than anticipated, my partner added more time for the parking. We came out a bit later and found a ticket on the car. We had 2 paystubs in full view, and at actually the time the ticket was issued we had paid twice for that period. We tried to access the company, that was useless. We contacted City Hall and sent an appeal form. Called City Hall and they never received it, so I walked over to the new City Hall (they had just moved) and brought in a new appeal form to cancel this ticket. I called and they still said they didn’t receive anything. After trying to fight this for months, my partner just paid the ticket, because we are law abiding folks. There should never have been a ticket issued, we’d paid for that space twice already.