Paid parking kicks in at 7 a.m. on many downtown Calgary streets in August

This story was originally published July 29,but we'veresurfaced it on the first work day of September as a reminder.

Street parking in many parts ofdowntown Calgary will require payment two hours earlier each weekday morningstarting Aug. 2.

The Calgary Parking Authority is reminding people ahead of the long weekend about the change, which was approved by city council in June.

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The new rules technically takeeffect on Monday, Aug. 1, butno payment for streetparking is required that day given the holiday.

Starting Tuesday, however, paid parkingwill begin at 7 a.m. instead of 9 a.m. in the areas labelled 4a, 4c and 4d in the following map.

TheCPA said those areas were selected because they had parking-stalloccupancy ofover 80 per cent between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m.

"While introducing charging in any time period or area is not popular, the intent of the policy is to make parking space available for those who are seeking to park in these areas at these times and visit local businesses," reads the report that went to city council.

Current parking prices are $4.50 per hour in area 4a, $4.75 per hour in area 4d and $5per hour in area 4c.

The city's new demand-based parking policy, adopted in 2014, also calls for on-street parking rates to increase by 25 cents perhour in zones that saw occupancy of 80 per cent or greater the year before, anddecrease by the same amountin zones with less than 50 per cent occupancy.

The Calgary Parking Authority cancelled any price increases this year, however, citing the economic downturn.

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"To help provide some relief to our customers during these difficult financial times, we've temporarily amended the rate policy we use to provide us with the flexibility to freeze both on-and off-street rates and in some cases even decrease rates," parking authority general manager Mike Derbyshire said in a release at the time.