Free Parking... my ass!

In Europe I never ever paid a cent to park my bike, neither in London, nor in Paris, not in Florence, and not in my hometown Cologne. Parking a two-wheeler on the sidewalk or between parked cars has always been tolerated, and I never had any trouble with pedestrians, other motorists or authorities in that matter. There were even designated spots for bikers only, and there were for free.

Recently I had to run an errand in Calgary downtown, and spent more time looking for a half decent parking spot for my scooter than for the errand itself. Maybe I am just too blind or stupid, but I got the impression that there is almost no legal parking for motorcycles, and 'illegal' spots are made inaccessible for bikes on purpose. So you either have to bite the bullet and pay in full for car parking (which I finally did), or find one of the newly announced 100 (in a city of over 1 million people!!!) official bike parking lots, and still have to pay a parking fee for it.
Fellow riders know about the advantages of commuting with a two-wheeler, but Oilberta for obvious reasons has no major interest in the reduction of the carbon footprint. Nevertheless it was actually this May, that motorcycle commuting has been promoted by introducing some designated parking spots for bikes, but I doubt that it has something to do with the obvious advantages of taking the bike to work, but with the fact that motorcycle parking fees will also line the city pockets.

Finally I found this map, created by fellow rider Ryan of the Alberta Motorcycle community, and work in progress, which might help to find free parking in downtown in the future.