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Winnipeg Free Press
4 days ago
- Business
- Winnipeg Free Press
‘Parking angels' prepare to flap wings to educate city drivers
Winnipeg drivers who may be confused by the removal of paystations in the city may end up being blessed by a 'parking angel.' Starting Thursday, staff from the Downtown Winnipeg BIZ and their counterparts in the Exchange and West Broadway areas will patrol downtown streets and direct drivers to payment options that work for them as the city begins the process of removing its 250 parking meters by Aug. 31. They will carry stacks of one-hour parking vouchers to use at their own discretion if someone is stuck without a way to pay — the city's way of showing some grace as the change rolls out this summer, said Winnipeg Parking Authority manager of operations and facilities Lisa Patterson. MATTHEW FRANK / FREE PRESS New PayByPhone app parking signs have been put up across downtown with QR codes that will direct drivers to a payment site. 'They've been trained to look for any types of people that look like they need a little bit of help … they're going to be acting as parking angels this summer,' she said Wednesday. Among them are 17 Downtown BIZ staff, who were trained by the WPA Wednesday on the reasons for the change and how to educate people on the new system. 'It does create some barriers for people, and what we want to do is, we know it's coming, so we want to do whatever we can to try to lessen that and make sure we can give someone as positive an experience as possible,' said Downtown BIZ director of operations Ken Berg. The city announced in May it would remove all its paystations, citing $1 million in yearly savings to the city and the costs to replace the outdated technology. Winnipeg is the second city in North America to remove its paystations outright, joining Edmonton. About 80 per cent of people who parked in Winnipeg in the first quarter of 2025 used an app. The first paystations were dismantled Tuesday, and 300 new PayByPhone app parking signs have been put up across downtown with QR codes that will direct drivers to a payment site. The signs are being installed on a trial basis, Patterson said. 'Other cities that we've talked to, they have some issues with people putting up fake QR stickers,' she said. Those without smartphones, or who prefer to pay in cash, will have to purchase prepaid parking booklets. They can be purchased at the Parking Store at 495 Portage Ave., 311 counters at 510 Main St. or Accès-Access Saint-Boniface at 170 Goulet St. By Friday, transit customer service centres at the Portage and Main concourse, Millennium Library, Susan A. Thompson Building at city hall and B-414 Osborne Street will have the booklets for sale. The booklets carry 10 one-hour passes at two price points: a pack for 'high demand' street parking costs $26.19 before tax, and 10 passes on a 'low demand' street is $16.67 plus tax. MATTHEW FRANK / FREE PRESS Dasha Savchenko works in the Exchange and said the new booklet system is inconvenient. Booklets can also be purchased with a credit card and mailed to drivers by calling 311. Parking signs will have a green decal at the bottom to indicate the street is high demand and requires the more expensive voucher. Patterson said people selling the booklets have been tasked with explaining this to buyers. The green decals are expected to be added to signs on high demand streets by the end of the week. Drivers won't be penalized for using a high-demand slip on a low-demand street, and Patterson suggested using a high-demand slip if a driver isn't sure. 'We're definitely going to show grace this summer, there is an enforcement strategy that goes along with PayByPhone,' she said. The WPA has sold around 200 prepaid booklets since the announcement that paystations would be removed was made May 21. Hesitation remains for some drivers. Dasha Savchenko was scrambling to find parking Wednesday afternoon on King Street so she wouldn't be late for her shift at House of Saturn, a tattoo parlour in the Exchange. The 27-year-old usually uses PayByPhone to pay for street parking and said it works well, but if she's run out of data on her cellphone, it's been a problem. She said the booklet system is too complicated and inconvenient to carry around. 'People, especially in this area, are already stressed driving here and they just want to make it simple,' she said. 'It'll take some getting used to.' Laura Charr, an RRC Polytech instructor, parks at the corner William Avenue and King Street. MATTHEW FRANK / FREE PRESS Laura Charra says using her phone to pay for parking is more convenient, but it can be unreliable without a strong data or WiFi signal. While using her phone to pay for parking is handy because it gives her notifications when it's about to run out, she said it's not always reliable if her phone struggles connecting to data or WiFi. She said buying booklets in advance is too much work. 'When I'm finding parking on the street, it's usually last minute.' Charr said. 'If I buy those books and all the spots are taken, I can't use it anyway.' Wednesdays Sent weekly from the heart of Turtle Island, an exploration of Indigenous voices, perspectives and experiences. Carmen Nedohin, who leads the Manitoba chapter of the Canadian Association for Retired Persons, said the grace period should extend to at least a year. 'I just think that some of the decisions that are being made there are being made in a vacuum, without checking with the people who are going to be impacted first,' she said. Patterson said the WPA is working on creating lunch sessions for seniors looking to learn about the new parking structure and walk them through the technology, in addition to other methods of 'hands-on' outreach. Malak AbasReporter Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg's North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak. Every piece of reporting Malak produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Winnipeg Free Press
03-07-2025
- General
- Winnipeg Free Press
Manitoba Métis Federation purchases historical artifacts
Métis artifacts previously scattered across the world have now returned home to Manitoba. The Manitoba Métis Federation unveiled its newly acquired 142-piece collection on Wednesday in Winnipeg. The collection, titled Our Grandmothers, includes silk embroidery, beaded caribou hide coats and moccasins, along with everyday items such as horse blankets. Some of the artifacts date back as early as 1830. MATTHEW FRANK / FREE PRESS The Manitoba Métis Federation unveils its newly acquired 142-piece collection, Our Grandmothers. The exhibition will be housed in the MMF's Red River Métis National Heritage Centre at 335 Main St., which is slated to open by 2027. Gregory Scofield, a University of Victoria professor and the collection's curator, says it took nearly 25 years to gather all the items in the collection. 'These pieces carry the stories, the geographies, the thoughts, the energy of the women that created them, and so these pieces really become a visual document,' he says. The items represent the utilitarian work Métis women did for their families, and were created either as gifts or to be sold at tourist markets. The majority of the artifacts are from Manitoba, while others originate from different Métis settlements in Western Canada, but Scofield says some were found in France, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. As someone who identifies as Red River Métis, Scofield sought out the pieces not for his personal collection, but so they could eventually be returned to Manitoba for the community to appreciate. It has been a sacred and emotional experience finding and reclaiming the items so the Métis community's ancestral grandmothers can be honoured, he says. 'They have been sitting in boxes, or they've been discarded, or they've been misrepresented or misidentified, so when the pieces have returned home, you're able to give them their proper attributions again, being able to caretake for them, not only physically, but to also be able to also give them back their stories,' Scofield says. Our Grandmothers marks the second collection the MMF has purchased to fill its heritage centre. The first included literature and documents, including poems written by Métis leader Louis Riel. MMF president David Chartrand says his organization has spent nearly $1 million reclaiming items, and he intends to spend more. MATTHEW FRANK / FREE PRESS University of Victoria professor and curator Gregory Scofield with a beaded caribou hide coat. The exhibitions are also being rounded out with items donated by citizens who have shared family heirlooms. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. Chartrand hopes the artifacts will help educate the public about Métis heritage and the wider story of how Western Canada was built. 'I hope people will take away, first, the richness of my people, and a sense of our pride for who we are,' Chartrand told reporters. 'Why these beads? You see how beautiful they are. You'll look and you'll just see colours, to us, we see stories.' There has been no resistance in handing the items over to be displayed, Chartrand says, adding the MMF is also discussing repatriating items from other Canadian museums and the Roman Catholic Church.
