Parking meters for Christmas

The controversial parking meter project will be implemented in time for the holiday season as Smart City Solutions Guyana is ready to begin operations by mid-next month.

According to the company, citizens will now have to pay in order to park between the hours of 7am to 7pm.

During a meeting with the media this morning, the Company’s Global Head of Business Development, Amir Oren said by month end the first set of meters will be installed. He made this disclosure at a press briefing on Friday morning.

“We are aiming a launch by the end of November it will be sort of a soft launch.  By that I mean, it would be kind of an introductory period. We are planning to make the first two weeks such that people won’t have to pay but they should get used to parking and printing out tickets and putting them, we’ll have people on the street, we’ll have awareness on the street and we won’t be any sanctions” Oren said.

Oren said the meters are wireless and will operate with a SIM card feature which would function entirely on solar energy and monitored in real time.

He said payment will only be done using a prepaid card and does not require an additional transaction fee outside of the initial 50 dollars for 15minutes.

According to the General Manager of Smart City Solutions Guyana, Carlos Gochez, the names of eighty locations will be released where citizens can purchase the prepaid cards.

For now, the cards are only accessible at Smart City Solutions Guyana office in Queenstown.

With the parking meter project being a partnership with the Georgetown Mayor and City Council, the Town Clerk, Royston King said training is being provided to transit officers of the company since they will be monitoring the various locations.

In the coming months, 157 meters are expected to be installed within the areas of Camp to Water Streets and from Quamina to Hadfield Streets.

Persons using the parking meters have up to six hours to park as each hour will cost 200 dollars per hour.