In Montreal’s downtown business district, the best deal is right on the street. Parking-meter rates are just $3 per hour, among the lowest of any big Canadian city.

The bargain-basement prices mean drivers park their cars in the same spot for prolonged periods, leaving other frustrated motorists driving around and around, searching for spots.

City councillor Marvin Rotrand is proposing a sensible way to change that: variable parking rates. The idea is that the cost of parking would be higher on stretches of downtown streets where demand is highest, perhaps even changing during the day to match demand. In quieter parts of downtown, rates would drop to encourage people to park there instead.

Other cities have found ways to encourage people to park for shorter periods. In Calgary, for example, one downtown zone has a “progressive rate”: $2 for the first half hour, $2.25 for the next 30 minutes, then $2.50 for subsequent half-hour periods.

San Francisco has an even better idea. Its elaborate system, now being tested on 7,000 parking meters, features a smartphone app that guides drivers to open parking spots, which are detected by sensors in the road. Parking rates change monthly, based on the demand over the previous 30 days. Rates go up on overused stretches to make sure at least one parking spot is available there most of the time. In underused areas, rates drop until most of the empty spaces fill. Rates vary by block, time of day and day of the week.

San Francisco’s aim: improve parking availability, reduce traffic and make streets safer. Less hunting for parking also means less pollution and fewer greenhouse-gas emissions.

Rotrand wants Montreal to set up a pilot project similar to San Francisco’s system: “We have to look at parking as more than just revenue. It can be a tool for urban planning and to promote economic development and [encourage] more sustainable modes of transport.”

Montrealers already feed $55 million a year into parking meters. But a rate hike is overdue. Downtown’s current $3-per-hour rate came into effect in 2007. Compare that with rates in the rest of Canada. In areas with the highest demand, per-hour parking-meter rates are $6 in Vancouver, $4.25 in Calgary, $4 in Toronto and $3.50 in Edmonton.

Some tax-weary Montrealers grumble that what Rotrand actually is proposing is a cash grab. Predictably, downtown businesses also hate his ideas. Discouraging drivers from coming downtown is the last thing those businesses need after a tough 2012, when they suffered through student demonstrations, the hockey lockout, incessant roadwork and an increase in taxes on indoor parking lots.

But Rotrand convincingly argues that market-driven variable rates could actually help businesses. They would remove a major annoyance (all that wasted time driving around looking for parking) and encourage a steady stream of fresh customers for stores. And dropping rates could entice more shoppers to low-traffic areas.

The arguments add up. Let’s just hope the city doesn’t park Rotrand’s idea on a shelf.

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