'Just Park It' campaign highlights free spots in Saint John

The Saint John Parking Commission has a hot tip for Saint Johners: there's free overnight parking in city-owned lots.

"The general public may not know this," said Marc Dionne, operations manager at the Saint John Parking Commission.

In years past, Saint John had a veritable smorgasbord of options for surface parking in the uptown — both legal and illegal. That changed, however, when the new Irving headquarters and flagship NB Liquor store moved into once-vacant lots on King Square and Union Street. 

With its new campaign, the city wants to make the public aware of parking options, although daytime spots uptown can still be hard to find.

"All of our parking lots are completely full and we even have wait-lists on them," Dionne said. Even the once-deserted parking lot at Peel Plaza is now "almost at capacity."

After some uptown residents complained they couldn't find parking spaces because of all the people parking on the streets for free, the parking commission decided to start promoting the availability of free overnight parking in its lots.

"Like always, we are trying to grow and support the uptown community and give people an opportunity to come without being ticketed," Dionne said.

Unlike the metered spaces in the uptown, there is "no risk" of being ticketed in city-owned lots overnight, Dionne said.

Any of the lots that the commission manages are open between 6 p.m. and 8 .a.m. — a total of 200 spaces in five lots in the uptown — plus several more outside the city's core.

The response to the news on Twitter has been, for the most part, jubilant.

A few people voiced concerns that they might arrive at work early only to find their space occupied by unscrupulous overnight parkers, Dionne said, but the parking commission is on that, too.

"We're going to provide strict enforcement in those areas to make sure if there are people in those lots that shouldn't be after a given time, they'll be ticketed," Dionne said.

The parking commission has taken "a lot of time to listen to the public and learn about what they want," Dionne said.

It came up with the idea of promoting free overnight parking using the hashtag #JustParkIt, a two-hour parking time limit in Saint John's north end, and replacing old style coin-operated meters with pay-and-display kiosks.

"It makes things a lot more efficient," Dionne said.

"From business owners, the community and the general public there's been an overwhelming positive response."