Calgary Parking Authority announces ticket and parking session refunds in 7 a.m. pricing areas

CALGARY, AB--(Marketwired - December 20, 2016) - The Calgary Parking Authority (CPA) announced today it will refund all tickets issued and parking fees charged in 7 a.m. pricing areas since August 1, 2016.

The decision follows the discovery of a discrepancy between parking policy changes approved by City Council earlier this year and the Calgary Traffic Bylaw. Changes to A Parking Policy Framework on June 20 allowed paid parking to begin at 7 a.m. in three pricing areas downtown; however, due to an oversight, the accompanying bylaw changes were not made at that time.

"Late last week as part of a routine review of the bylaw we discovered that the policy and the bylaw weren't aligned," said Mike Derbyshire, CPA General Manager. "This means we've been charging for parking in those areas and enforcing without the proper authority to do so. We immediately suspended enforcement and will be refunding any tickets issued and parking fees collected from 7 a.m. until 9 a.m. in the affected pricing areas since August 1^st of this year."

To date, over 800 parking tickets worth about $50,000 and approximately $100,000 in parking charges have been collected in the 7 a.m. pricing areas.

"We apologize for this inconvenience and ask anyone who paid by credit card or cash at the pay machines or used the Virtual Pay Machine option between 7 a.m and 9 a.m. from August 1 to December 16, 2016 to email their name, phone number and license plate to refunds@calgaryparking.com so we can contact them regarding their refund as quickly as possible," said Derbyshire. "ParkPlus cellphone account holders who made payments in the 7 a.m. areas will receive an automatic credit to their account for any sessions they activated during that time frame."

Any violation tickets that are currently in the court system will be withdrawn immediately. Any convictions which have been obtained with be quashed with any fine amount paid to be refunded back to the customer.

Paid parking was extended to 7 a.m. from 9 a.m. in pricing areas 4a, 4c and 4d beginning August 1^st because occupancy levels were over the 80% threshold identified in the Parking Policy Framework which guides parking management.

Yesterday Calgary City Council amended the Calgary Traffic Bylaw 26M96 to allow paid parking and enforcement from 7 a.m. in the three pricing areas. As a goodwill gesture, CPA has suspended enforcement in the 7 a.m. zones until January 2, 2017.

About Us

The Calgary Parking Authority is a proud partner of The City of Calgary and is committed to managing publicly-owned on- and off-street parking facilities on The City's behalf. In addition, we manage the municipal parking enforcement program and provide parking advisory services.

Click link to view video: Every dollar we collect that exceeds our operational costs is returned to The City of Calgary. In 2014 we returned more than $24 million to the municipal general revenue program which funds projects such as recreation centres and pathways and provides funding for community services and public safety programs. The CPA operates without using any municipal tax revenues.

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