The City of Saskatoon expects the reason for lower-than-expected parking meter revenues is an increase in apps that remove the need to go out.

In the 2025 preliminary budget backgrounder released by the City of Saskatoon, parking ticket and parking meter revenues came up $750,000 short compared to projections for the year.

Director of Community Standards, Matt Grazier, explains that since Covid, people have begun staying at home, shopping online, and attending meetings via Zoom and Teams. He suspects this often takes away the need to travel downtown as opposed to concerns about safety when frequenting the business districts.

“So that’s one of the bigger reasons we point towards in terms of us not seeing that same level of demand like we did prior to the pandemic, when a lot of those technological advancements didn’t quite exist.”

The city also collected $250,000 less than expected from parking ticket revenues.

“If our overall parking demand is lower, our opportunity for ticketing will also correspond to that. So, that’s kind of rational, that those two are closely aligned.”

He says Transit ridership is also up, meaning a lesser number of single-occupancy vehicles needing to park downtown.

Moving forward, the City has reduced its parking meter revenue projection for 2025 by $500,000 to $6.2 million.