I have heard from some that parking on the weekend at McMaster is free, is this true? Lately I have been going there on my weekends and was not aware that this may be the case. If anyone can just confirm or deny this than that would be really good. Thanks in advance.

Well thats a two fold answer. Before the new parking arms the deal was you could park after 8pm on week days and on a friday till Monday 8am without being ticketed.

Now with parking arms that is no longer the case, if you want to park in a parking lot with working parking arms (say Lot M- previously known as Zone 6) you have to pay, no matter what day or time it is.

Some parking lots don't have working arms yet, like Zone 2 (outside McKay Hall and T-29/28) which means that you can still park there free of charge after 8pm on week nights and during weekends till monday morning. Once all the parking arms are working, which should be soon, you will always have to pay for parking.

thank you for the thorough explanation. Hopefully they stall on these developments, either way I think I am actually going to bike there this weekend (let's hope for decent weather).

Its supposed to rain on Friday and Saturday so you best prepare!

Do we know how soon the parking arms for somewhere like Zone 2 will be functioning?

I'm just curious b/c my parents usually park there for a short period of time on Sunday evenings if they bring me back to residence. I wouldn't want them to have to pay for the very limited amount of time they park there.

I couldn't tell you, sorry. You'll know that they're working if the arms are down though. When they stand right up all the time, they're not working.

I'm looking to park this weekend for the first time, so if I understand what you're saying, if I park there after 8 pm on Thursday, I'll be okay until Saturday morning?

No. If you park in a parking lot with parking arms that are not yet functional (ie Zone 2) after 8pm on a FRIDAY you should not get a ticket until Monday morning at 8AM. Unless for some strange reason they're working on weekends, which I highly, highly doubt.

If you park there thursday till saturday you'll get a ticket for sure.

Thanks. I had misread what you wrote earlier.

Yeah, I just found out recently I could park in the lot beside the student center for free on the weekends, but I didn't realize it's because the arms weren't actually running yet...Sucks because I have to walk all the way up from Zone M whenever I come here on weekends to work since the shuttle buses don't run.

Yeah I know... I have a friend who lives in Les Prince and he hates the walk back

Originally Posted by sew12

Do we know how soon the parking arms for somewhere like Zone 2 will be functioning?

I'm just curious b/c my parents usually park there for a short period of time on Sunday evenings if they bring me back to residence. I wouldn't want them to have to pay for the very limited amount of time they park there.

If you park for less than 15 minutes at the parking lots with the arms, its free. Not sure about the one opposite ABB, but the one thats a 5 min from Thode definitely has that.

Had a close call with the "free" parking a couple of weekends ago. Woke up at ~8am on Sunday with my car parked in the Bates parking lot the night before, looked out the window, and saw a wonderful shady parking officer racking up tickets for everyone else who had taken advantage of the "free" parking offer!

Fortunately I skipped breakfast and got downstairs to drive away with my car JUST BEFORE he even checked whether my car had a permit.

So beware and don't quote anyone on there being "free" parking at any point. It all technically costs money 24/7 and they can randomly choose to enforce it anytime, just like I witnessed that one weekend.