Place de la Cité is installing barriers: visitors will have to pay after two hours of use on weekdays

The imposition of parking fees at the Place de la Cité shopping center in Quebec City is raising eyebrows, even if the building’s owner, the Mach Group, maintains that it has no other choice but to do so to combat the encroachments.

Recently, people driving to Place de la Cité have noticed the appearance of automated parking barriers. Mach Group explains that as employees returned to the building, it was often difficult to find bins designated for visitors.

Instead of having to pay a monthly ticket to go to work two or three days a week at the office, workers used the spaces for mall customers. At least 4,000 people work at Place de la Cité, about half of whom work for Retraite Québec, whose head office is located there.

He said: “The new post-pandemic reality, with regard to the flexibility of face-to-face working requirements among our office tenants, means that a large number of their employees are trying by all means to avoid monthly pricing by using designated visitor boxes.” Michel Ayotte, Vice President of Mach’s Quebec office.

To address this problem, the building owner implemented new technologies to offer a flexible roster for office workers. In addition, visitors enjoy two free hours of parking to go shopping. Mr Ayotte adds that the barriers will be removed at the weekend.

The director added that Place de la Cité also wanted to avoid becoming a park-and-ride park when the tram eventually enters service.

Angry customers

Even if they take advantage of the free two hours, the clients have met on-site before Newspaper Wednesday they were surprised and shocked. Some even tried to turn back to avoid the barriers, as we have seen on numerous occasions.

“When we saw that, we went to the parking lot across the street, on the Laurier Quebec side where it’s free, and crossed on foot. I don’t understand. This is ridiculous. We’ve been coming here for years and have never had this problem. It’s unpleasant.” “At least there is an option: Go to the other side,” one customer said.

Merchants at the mall heard news of the policy change.

“It’s a bit of confusion that’s going on. It’s a business that wasn’t profitable before and suddenly that changes. There’s a lot of people who don’t like it. There’s also a lot of people who are still paying cash,” said Wilson Michael, Normandin restaurant manager.