Ottawa Now - Alex Lawson vows to rip up on-street parking meters if elected Mayor of Ottawa

If elected next month, Ottawa mayoral candidate Alex Lawson is promising to rip up on-street parking meters and offer free parking on City of Ottawa streets. He unveiled his plan earlier this morning with a short-and-sweet tagline: Stop feeding the meter. According to Lawson’s plan, no on-street meter will be spared, and the parking reserve fund will be used to remove every single one of them. In the latest City of Ottawa Parking Services Report, the municipality managed 4,337 on-street parking spaces in 2025. It collected $9.78 million in revenue from these spaces, while it cost $7.42 million to maintain and operate them throughout the year. Lawson joins guest host Austin Lee on Ottawa Now.