A proposal to extend pay parking on downtown streets into the evenings is not a cash grab, city officials stressed Thursday.
A city parking services review suggests charging $1 an hour for street parking between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday; boosting the cost of on-street parking to $3 an hour in some of the downtown core; making parking free for the first hour in parkades and making parkades free in the evenings.
On-street parking downtown currently costs $2.50 an hour with a 90-minute maximum between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. and is free after 6 p.m. Monday to Saturday. It is free all day Sundays and holidays.
The recommendations are part of an effort to encourage people to use parkades in order to increase parking turnover on downtown streets. If all the changes recommended were adopted, Ismo Husu, city manager of parking services, estimates an additional $170,000 of net revenue to the city.
Several councillors said Thursday many in the community had jumped on that fact to label the review as a cash grab.
“In hearing the staff presentation with the detail it provided, it became very clear that, I think, the principle behind this work is enhanced customer service. Instead, because of a number of reasons — and we can all take responsibility for it — the issue has basically been hijacked and turned into a cash grab,” Coun. Pam Madoff said.
Husu noted that the proposals to increase on-street parking rates and to charge for street parking until 9 p.m. apply to only 835 of the city’s 2,000 on-street parking spaces — those within a three-minute walk of a city parkade. At the same time, about 1,900 parking stalls in parkades would offer the first hour of parking free and would be made available free of charge after 6 p.m. Some of the street spaces may actually see rates decreased to increase usage, Husu said.
“So it’s a trade of almost 1,900 spaces [in parkades] for 835 and creating a nominal rate on-street to try to get those spots open,” Husu said.
Currently, on-street parking in the downtown can run between 95 and 100 per cent occupancy while parkade usage is often closer to 60 to 65 per cent. The goal is to have on-street occupancy closer to 85 per cent, Husu said.
Coun. Geoff Young said it would be easy enough to address the “money grab” issue by making any changes revenue neutral. He said he supported the report’s recommendations.
Both Young and Coun. Charlayne Thornton-Joe said every successful city had a parking problem.
“There is no way that we are going to reach some kind of solution that everyone likes because parking is a competition. There are different kinds of people who want that parking and there’s only so much of it to go around,” Young said.
The city has spent about $5 million in recent years updating and improving parkades with different measures such as paint, better lighting and blocking off hidden areas where people might congregate, but parkade use has decreased.
Husu said part of the decline in use might be attributable to increased rates or people not returning to parkades after they’ve been closed for months for repairs. All parkades have security 24/7.
Still, there remains a perception that city parkades are unsafe, some councillors said, and it will take a co-ordinated communications effort to change that.
City director of engineering Dwayne Kalynchuk said it’s a matter of rebuilding confidence.
But Coun. Lisa Helps said a real problem with some parkades still exists.
“The Johnson Street parkade, in particular. I was there on a Monday at 5:30. There were people drinking in the stairwell. They were smoking. It stunk. There was urine by our car,” Helps said. “So whether it’s perception or reality, I think we have a serious issue on our hands and we need to fix that as much as we’re doing everything else with rates and demand management strategies.”
Key recommendations include:
• Introducing variable hourly rates (from $1 to $3 an hour) for on-street parking with time limits ranging from 90 minutes to all day. The new rate structure would increase the cost of on-street parking to $3 an hour in areas within three minutes of parkades and decrease rates in other areas.
• Charging $1 an hour for on-street parking between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.
• Free parking in parkades after 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.
• Eliminating hundreds of parking permits issued to Greater Victoria elected officials and staff, freeing up spaces.
• Making the first hour free in all city parkades; eliminating the use of the hour-free coupons now issued by participating merchants.
• Streamlining and reducing parking rates in parkades.
• In above-ground parkades, moving long-term users to upper levels to free up lower stalls.
Staff will refine the report and bring it back for further consideration.
