It appears that two enterprising fellows in Montreal have found a way to ease the pain of finding parking in Montreal, so why can’t it be done in Toronto? Philippe Guevremont and Dominic Chartrand founded Ma Place, a website that finds and reserves a parking space for you in downtown Montreal and near Metro Longueuil. It’s a very simple process. You sign up and enter where and when you need a parking space. The computer finds the parking space, reserves it, and takes your payment by credit card. So far approximately 700 people have signed up for the service.

Why don’t we have anything like this in Toronto? The closest is http://www.parkingspots.com/ which doesn’t help in your daily quest to find a parking space. What it does is help you find long term monthly parking, rent out your monthly parking space, and locate event parking.

Ma Place sounds like a great idea that could really work in Toronto. The amount of time wasted looking for a parking space, not to mention the frustration level, continues to escalate. In spite of the fact that the Mayor of Toronto and the current city council would like to see cars banished from our fair city that is not going to happen. Making the parking process more efficient would benefit the drivers, the city, and the environment. There would be much less gridlock and less idling, therefore less pollution. It seems that this type of parking system is a win-win for everyone. Why doesn’t the City of Toronto get behind a project like this and do something useful for a change?