You might accept a penny for your thoughts, but what about parting with a loonie to park your car?

Councillors in Stratford are considering raising the downtown parking rate to $1 per hour.

The rate was last changed in 2005, when it was upped from 25 cents per hour to 40.

Coun. Tom Clifford, chair of the city’s finance committee, says it currently costs the city more than 60 cents per hour to provide the parking.

Still, the idea of increasing the rate doesn’t sit well with many people who work and shop in the downtown.

“Every time we talk about it, people that own stores will say ‘You can do that, it’s going to drive people out of the downtown,’” Clifford said.

Rick Frank, who owns a downtown food retailer, says he’s worried the city might “kill the golden goose” by raising rates.

“We should make it easier to come down here,” he said.

“We shouldn’t be trying to gouge people for a dollar an hour for parking.”

Dorothy Lise, who says she only shops downtown when she has no other options, agrees.

“I think Stratford’s parking rates are high enough for the size of the city and the lack of parking that we have,” she said.

CTV’s informal street-level survey wasn’t unanimous, though – it also heard from John Leks, who said he didn’t see $1 per hour as an unreasonable price.

“I almost always have a toonie in the car, or a loonie, that I can use to park,” he said.

Most downtown parking is currently centred on a lot behind City Hall.

Plans call for the lot to be renovated into a public square, and the city is mulling building a parking garage to make up for the lost spaces.

Such a garage would likely cost several million dollars, while a fund for the project currently sits at a little less than $1 million.

“If we have a parking garage, we have to have capital to build the garage,” Clifford said.

Parking prices return to the council table in February.