Much like they do for dining endeavour or trip to the spa, Calgarians may soon be able to reserve thousands of downtown parking spaces for day-trips.

The Calgary Parking Authority is hoping to offer the feature to commuters with a downtown destination and has eyed piggy-backing on technology being pursued by Calgary Transit, which is looking at a new booking system for its Park ‘n’ Ride reservations at city LRT lots.

While the system would enhance service for those already reserving spaces monthly in authority-owned parking garages, organization head Troy McLeod said the offering would also allow people to head online and pre-book stalls for single-day use.

“Then you would have an assurance if you need to drive and need a stall that particular day,” McLeod said. “That would be one of the benefits.”

The system would be easy to implement in downtown garages because they have a built-in light system that indicates whether a stall is free, but McLeod said the authority is exploring to methods to offer a reservation option in open-air, surface lots and potentially even for select on-street parking stalls as well.

The on-street reservation possibility piqued the interest of Chris Himmelspeck, who works construction jobs in the downtown core weekly.

“I would definitely use it on-street . . . we have to carry 200-300 pounds worth of tools,” he said. “Instead of walking two or three blocks, we would only have to walk like 30 feet to a job.”