The Castries Constituency Council (CCC) has begun installing ten solar-powered parking terminals on streets around the Saint Lucia capital.
The installation, training, signage, and other preparation are due to last between four and five months.
Castries Mayor Geraldine Lendor-Gabriel noted that there had been a long-standing cry for better parking in the City, which experiences daily congestion.
“People who come to Castries find it difficult to get parking, even for a short time,” Lendor-Gabriel observed.
She explained that the parking terminals would facilitate affordable parking.
The devices will accept coins and paper money and can also be programmed to take debit or credit cards in the future.
“The parking terminals have the other option we will explore. It’s not just parking. It can allow for issuing tickets for any purpose – buses, comfort station use and vending,” the Castries Mayor disclosed.
It would cost motorists three dollars an hour to park in the City.
Each parking terminal would serve an entire street, but drivers could buy a ticket and park elsewhere in the City.
“If you buy a parking ticket, say, on Peynier Street, you just display it on your vehicle and you can park on the William Peter Boulevard. It is not restricting you to an area. It just affords you parking in the City,” the Castries Mayor told St. Lucia Times.
Landor-Gabriel explained that the choice of various locations for the terminals was to facilitate easy access by motorists, preventing them from travelling a long distance to obtain paid parking.
The Mayor said enforcement would accompany the installation of the parking terminals.
“I don’t think we should even argue over whether people should pay for parking because we have seen the kind of congestion we get in Castries. If we want the City to remain alive, to facilitate business and persons who work in the City to continue earning a living, we need to improve the parking situation,” she asserted.
The Mayor noted that there has been paid parking around Derek Walcott Square, an area of high demand, for years.
“It’s not new. But we have seen the need to increase it and make it more affordable and flexible rather than tying people into a monthly fee,” Lendor-Gabriel explained.
Lendor-Gabriel disclosed that the parking terminal initiative pre-dated the current CCC administration.
She told St. Lucia Times that the predecessor administration had partially paid for the devices.
“When we got into office, the terminals had been purchased and were sitting on the wharf and we re-energised the project,” the Castries Mayor stated.
Somebody pls explain how i pay for a ticket on Peynier Street but can park on the Boulevard. How does that make any sense, So i stop in the middle of peynier street, delay traffic behind me, walk to the meter, pay fo rmy ticket, retrieve it and then drive to the Boulevard to see if there is an empty slot to park – Interesting.
@ WOW…you are spot on with your practical questions about the meters. Make what the mayor said make sense plz. You see the Mayor does not fully understand the business and environmental basis for installing parking meters in the year 2023. Parking meters in the case of Castries should serve as a deterent for vehicles to park at designated zones such as an area with high foot traffic or an area where officials want to be greener in terms of emissions. All what was uttered in this article are baseless justifications for such.
It’s a cash shakedown with a different name. Here is how it goes. Take a downtown area, load it streets with parked minivans. Add hapless drivers wanting to conduct business downtown. Enter a clueless council, with no serious solutions to a parking problem. Squeeze overtaxed drivers into the mix and stir.
Presto! You have the best incompetence bouillon.
revert to cycle and mules it will help clean our amazon like roadways and reduce emission by far and cost penny’s. If you opted for cycles then you’ll decrease a lot of illness which required you to talk and yes taking quality time to exercise while you can do so during your transit time. Ok work pile your money up and go visit another human who sits in an office and charge you 150$ + prescription cost and yet tells you to exercise … see how foolish we have become just because of money and wealth?
Parking meters are way overdue and well needed for the CCC Revenue bankruptcy..
Another cost to the Vechile owners..
@WOW
Yes you nitwit. It is that simple.
Omg in a st lucia one hears the most outrageous, nonsensical comments. For a country that was on the verge to being in the same bracket with Haiti as the poorest in the hemisphere, every time to have such mentality. You’ll celebrates CRIME imagine some people celebrating crime, then government put measures in place to alleviate the pressure on poor people, lucians have a problem, government take off the tax on contracts up to 10 grand, you’ll have an issue when the previous government was making it harder for poor people. When you’ll stop you’ll BS. It’s country over politics. When Fair Helen do well, we The People will do well. Stop the nonsense and stop it now. Look how the athletes just awake from nowhere and Fair Helen is back on the map. Look how the previous PM wanted to jail the former Sports Minister with a stipend of $150 , today he’s the first to congratulate Julien Alfred, but when she needed the help where were you Previous PM. Give me a break and the painful thing is I’m watching these poor people who’s following this nonsensical party knowing how much HARD it was for them in the last 5 yrs. Guess many people are not used to CHANGE AND THEREFORE STILL TRYING TO ADOPT TO CHANGE
Even more reason not to want to go to Castries. Place is already a filthy ghetto with threatening low life vieux negs setting up their blocks on every corner.
I welcome these meters and it’s about time they were set up. And so what if it’s extra revenue for ccc. There are so many vehicles in st.lucia and parking in town is impossible. You go to buy books you have to park so far and carry these heavy bags. You see people parking in spots the whole day and you come to town for a few minutes and can’t get a parking. In other countries there are parking meters and they have had it for years and the system works. The meters take money and cards. You don’t have to pay on a particular street, it’s stating that if you pay on a street and park there you can move else where to park for the remainder of your paid time. The article just doesn’t explain it well.
It amazes me that the Conway Parking Garage is usually half empty – and it has the cheapest parking fees – $2.25 an hour. I am always in a “pickle” when my friends prefer to drive around the city LOOKING for a parking space. Whenever I tell them, just go to the parking garage where it is cheap, safe and effective – they always have an invalid excuse. *claps had to forehead*
People: my message to you is to use the Conway Parking Garage, where it is cheap and safe – instead of diving around, paying exorbitant parking fees or worse – WAITING – for when a spot becomes available. The Conway parking garage has 4 stories of 100 parking spots …. AMAZING!!
Honestly, the new parking meters are of NO USE to me. And further – I have no shares in this parking garage as it is not owned by “shareholders”. Just that I’ve used it for years!! No problems!! I can shop in the supermarket downstairs, and use the elevator to take my trolley of groceries to the parking space, pay my fees and drive off.
Further … new buildings going up in Castries CAN include parking in their building design: either on the ground floor of the building (elevators will need to be implemented here), or design the building to accommodate parking on the top floor – IT IS DO-ABLE!! We are just clueless!!
Castries is a pure sh@thole the only reason people go there is because we are being extorted to do certain neccessary transactions,the orange grove plaza in bois orange could have been a business mall, put the passport office there ect,but noooo we have to have incompetent and low IQ ppl pulling the strings,also up north is now a ghetto like castries cuz the main road network is like a backroad.castries is simply a gigantic garbage bin.
this will not work…I cant see the vision Castries is already a mess ,the side walks and streets are already filled with vendors there is not space to walk fearless to park.
@ cautions if it was hard for u when the pervious government was there ….what are u say now for that this government that there now ….because I don’t see it any better
boy what a group of empty minded fools who are so blind by the stupid politricks and when the party colour they like not in power nothing is going good for them. they are just problem oriented.
This should be cashless. Are they vandalized proof?
Let me make it make sense for yall. The only way the mayor can guarantee that when you pay for a ticket on Peynier Street that you can get a spot in the Boulevard. Is because there will be no free parking in the Boulevard. Thr Boulevard, together with 17 other streets will become metered zones, so if your vehicle is parked there without a metered sticker on your windscreen you will be issued with a Ticket offense or even towed. NO MORE FREE PARKING IN THE CITY!!
This is how it works the governments has installed parking meters.. if you the public who drives to the city of Castries and wants to park your vehicle on any given week day on any side streets in the city which I’m hoping Sunday is not included no one pays for parking on a Sunday…… you will have to put your $3 in the parking meters you will get a ticket to put inside front of your windshield so when the police officer or whomever patrolling the streets to see… if anyone violate any traffic laws you will be fine where you will have to pay more money for the fine than the 3$ you supposed to pay…
Haha some of the comments here are silly at best. You do not get a ticket and go around hoping you find a spot. You find a spot and then get a ticket from any of the designated terminals. Display your ticket in your car and go about your buisness.
In commercial areas it is unconscionable to park in a spot all day infront of a buisness. In busy areas, ensuring that people move their vehicles after a certain amount of time prevents any one vehicle from occupying a spot for too long. I live in a city and altohugh we have paid parking outside my condo it is limited to 2 hours only within a 24 hour period. That way customers to the resturants and shops on my street can also use the parking spots. Even though I live on that street as well.
There are drawbacks to any government policy including local government install parking terminals, such as local opposition to paid parking or the potential for over-reliance on parking revenue.
The key is to balance the needs and concerns of the community with the benefits that parking terminals provide. In my case I get a permit that allows me to park longer than two hours. But the permit is not free and must be renewed yearly. I also get another permit for one of my guests. I pay $150/year (USD) for the permit.
How does paying for parking gives better parking when the real issue is there are no proper parking facilities in the city?…first you must provide the people with proper parking facilities before you start making them pay for parking…
to those questioning what the mayor said about paying for a ticket one area and parking another i was confused as well. I believe what she is trying to say is if you have parked on peynier street where there is a meter and you are done on that street with your business but have to move and park in the boulevard where there is also a meter to do another transaction you can still use that ticket in the boulevard granted that your minutes on the ticket has not expired. So basically you are paying for parking anywhere in the city that has those meters and not just paying for parking only for the street you parked on.
people will always have a problem because its change. people dont like to adapt to change so they will always find issues with change especially when it comes for the better and benefit of people. I didn’t like the idea of it because I thought this meter was going to be placed on every street in the city but having understood its only on selected streets where people do business regularly and need parking for a short space of time for example bridge street where people park on the side and run to a store and rush back hoping the police dont have time give them a ticket.
I think its a good initiative especially to deter these parking hogers that believe a certain parking is for them alone, like a lady on chisel street by Ministry of education. She refuses to park in her designated ministry parking and lies to people saying oh a truck has to come there and prevents people from parking in the normal parking spot and wants to force fit two vehicles in a small parking spot