Winnipeg experience sheds some light on Regina parking transition

The City of Regina is headed down a path already cleared by Winnipeg and other cities when it comes to on-street parking.

On Wednesday, Regina’s executive committee agreed to forward an amendment to council allowing for pre-paid parking vouchers, as downtown street parking transitions to meterless, removing the coin option for drivers.

Read more:

• Prepaid vouchers touted as low-tech alternative to digital payments for parking
• Parking meter blowback expected during Regina committee discussion
• Starting Sunday, coins will no longer be accepted for on-street parking in downtown Regina

If approved, the vouchers will be sold in books of five at City Hall, with each voucher good for one hour of parking.

The city has clarified how the vouchers will work: when a driver parks a vehicle, they will “scratch off” the year, month, day and time.

Winnipeg’s vouchers work the same way, except that they are sold in books of 10. Until 2025, the parking booklets were part of a list of options that included paying at a pay station or using the PayByPhone App – the same app used in Regina since 2019.

Lisa Patterson, manager of operations and facilities for the Winnipeg Parking Authority, explains the decision was made in 2025 to remove the pay stations due to the deactivation of the 3G wireless network that the kiosks relied upon.

“We had 80 per cent adoption rate to PayByPhone ahead of the announcement, and we also had 10 per cent of our customers that used a credit card at the machine,” Patterson said in an interview. “So really, we needed to convert 10 per cent of our customers that used coin at the machines onto the PayByPhone platform.

“Since the retirement of our final machine in August, we’ve seen 10,000 new downloads of the app every single month, up until even last month.”

At the same time, Patterson said while the transition led to a temporary spike in sales of the parking booklets, they have seen little use.

“Whereas we sold maybe 2,000 booklets in 2025, we’re seeing less than one per cent of our customers putting the coupon booklet on the dash,” she said. “We think that people bought these and put them, maybe in their vehicle, in their glove box, and are having them as a safe keeping tool for them to use when they go to the hospitals or downtown.

“But we’re not seeing a lot of these booklets being used.”

Outreach seen as closing gap in app use

Patterson said outreach efforts have been underway to try to convert people into users of the PaybyPhone platform.

“My team and I have been going to seniors centres, community centres, affordable homes, housing units, and teaching our demographics that may not know how to use their phone to pay for parking,” she said.

“And we’re showing them how to download the app, and then we practice buying parking on their phone.”

Another option Patterson noted is the 30,000 public parking spaces available in downtown Winnipeg, operated by private companies like Impark. Those companies have told the city they have no intention of removing pay stations.

Winnipeg isn’t alone in decommissioning a system of pay stations. Edmonton has also gone completely cashless, and Patterson said Corner Brook, N.L. removed its pay stations due to vandalism.

At the same time, Saskatoon is in the process of replacing its pay stations with an upgraded model.

Calgary uses pay stations, while Toronto and Vancouver have a mix of pay stations and meters.

Regina city council first decided to scrap the city’s parking meters as a cost-saving measure during budget deliberations in December.

It has started covering meters to prevent their use, but the needed bylaw changes will come up for a vote at the March 11 council meeting.