[rousseau]

What's the significance? Is it essentially an encouragement to drive into town, and an acknowledgment that this can be done fairly easily? Is a city more "successful" by urbanist standards if you have to pay? What cities don't offer it, but should? And vice versa?

Cities for which I know the free parking status:

Toronto: No
Oakville: No
Burlington: No
Barrie: No
Stratford: No
Niagara-on-the-Lake: No
St. Catharines: No
Ottawa: No

Kitchener: Yes
London: Yes
Guelph: Yes

Montreal: No
Quebec City: No
Trois-Rivières: No
Sherbrooke: No

I wonder if there are any surprises out there? The only one for me on this list is St. Catharines, a fairly depressed place with a hollowed out manufacturing sector. It's essentially inside the tourist region of Niagara but offers little of interest to visitors.

Edit: My mistake, Ottawa doesn't have free parking.