Photo: Interior Health

The parking crunch at Penticton Regional Hospital will hopefully soon be over, with the new parkade built alongside the David E. Kampe tower open on Sunday.

Interior Health is advising the public about the new parking-payment system that will come with it.

Levels one to three of the parkade are dedicated to patient and visitor parking, with the ground floor and upper levels dedicated to staff passholders. The new parkade features an availability sign at the entrance and electric vehicle charging stations on level three.

The new parkade will also bring pay-by-plate parking rather than by stall number or displayed receipts. Rates will stay the same.

“The new payment system...will offer the convenience of remaining indoors to perform transactions and extend time if required,” an IH bulletin reads.

Existing outdoor surface parking lots at emergency, the OSNS development centre and psychiatry services will also transition to a pay-per-plate system while the south parking lot that was temporarily converted to visitor parking during construction will revert back to staff passholder parking.