Westmount aims to address superhospital parking crunch

The City of Westmount has a new plan to deal with the parking crunch anticipated to arrive along with the new MUHC superhospital.

The city is planning to make changes that would add 10 more spots to the Victoria Village area, increasing the number of parking spots to 200.

It also wants to cut back 35 two-hour parking spots in the area below Sherbrooke Street in order to create more resident-only parking.

But some businesses say that will make parking even harder for their customers. 

Steve Dennis, manager of Martin Swiss Cycles on Victoria Avenue, told Daybreak that city council needs to do more to alleviate the parking shortage in the area. 

"I think they’re going in the right direction, but they need to go much further," Dennis said.

Philip Cutler, city councillor for Westmount's District 2, said the problem isn't about more residential parking spots but outdated parking metres.

"The City of Montreal has a system that works quite well,"  Cutler said. 

"You are able to pay from your phone or use your credit card. We can't offer those options yet. It's a pretty archaic system."

Cutler hopes to have a new parking machines in place by the end of 2015.

The parking plan will be tabled and voted on at Westmount's city council meeting Monday night.