The parking meters at Steinbach City Hall have been removed.

Adam Thiessen is the city's Manager of Corporate Services. He says the parking meters at city hall are the only ones the City of Steinbach has ever operated. He notes based on some receipts he has found, they were installed around 1976.

Photo credit: City of SteinbachThiessen says the typical lifespan for these types of parking meters was only ever 10 or 15 years so, at 45-years-old, the ones at city call were well past their intended lifespan. He adds the city could no longer get parts to maintain them and they were jamming up frequently.

"Over time the use had been declining further and further. And, probably the biggest reason they are being removed is that we are encouraging people to use the front doors at city hall where we have proper accessibility amenities and so it just makes sense to have good free customer parking as close to the right entrance as we can have."

Orville Giesbrecht, Co-Owner of Harvest Insurance, welcomes the move with open arms.

"It has been a little bit of a sore spot with us. There are no other parking meters in Steinbach except for that one parking lot that happens to be behind us here. We have had some struggles but the city has also been very good about it and this morning when we came to work and we saw that the meters were no longer there, that was a beautiful thing."

Over the years, Giesbrecht says they have helped Harvest Insurance customers with parking tickets.

"We've had customers that have been in doing business with us and if they get a ticket, we are going to pay for that for sure and we have paid for a number of them."

Thiessen says the parking meters will be replaced with 1-hour parking signs.