Staying in a hotel in downtown Montreal has all the obvious advantages of being close to businesses, shops and restaurants, but all downtown hotels charge a good amount for parking, from $20 and up per night. But it is relatively easy to avoid these charges if you are willing.
The easiest way to save is to find a parking lot near the hotel, where rates tend to be around $10-$12 per night, half the hotel’s cost. All hotels have a little space to unload the bags and check in to save carrying bags from the parked car.
Always on the look for ways to save money, I found that on-street parking is not that hard to find, just confusing. parking meters are readily available if overnight parking is all that is required. They operate from 9am to 9pm generally during the week, so as long as you move your car by 9 in the morning all is good. To pay at a meter costs $2 an hour if you need to park from say 7pm.
Even in downtown there are many streets which are part residential. Here typically one side of the street is reserved for residents’ parking permits and the other for anyone. Resident’s parking is indicated by a red square on the parking sign with a number inside it, indicating the permit number required. So don’t park on that side of the street. The other side will indicate (though not very clearly) where parking is permitted, between two of these signs with the arrows on the signs pointing at the stretch of road that can be parked on. The signs are in french so you will need to know the days of the week (lundi is monday, mardi is tuesday, mercredi is wednesday, jeudi thursday and vendredi friday) as from April to the 1st of December street cleaning takes place meaning no parking is allowed on one day a week in the morning. To be sure that the parking space is not for permit holders check the other cars parked there – the permits are red squares in the rear windscreen.
Once the car is left in a street spot it can be left for a few days, and public transport can then be used – the metro is cheap and efficient (6 tickets cost $12, one is $2.75), buses are plentiful and taxis are all metered. Bon voyage !
