A trial period to explore paid parking on five downtown Banff lots was officially cancelled this week when council gave third reading of a petition put forward by concerned members of the community.
The vote was held Monday (Sept. 29) and took effect immediately, effectively ending paid parking in the community and the use of licence plate recognition technology. Infrastructure in parking lots was expected to be removed by the end of the week.
While the vote of council was considered a success by Banff Residents Against Paid Parking spokesperson Christine Kaufmann, there is still a desire in the community to hold a plebiscite on the issue.
“After the conversation that has occurred, I would imagine town council would put it to a plebiscite because how could they not after everything that has happened and the overall community outlook?” Kaufmann said after the meeting. “I think without a doubt they should put it to a plebiscite.”
The cost of a plebiscite is estimated at $7,400 based on the costs incurred for the 2013 municipal election.
The appetite of council, however, was to not take the motions that were the target of the petition to a plebiscite. Councillor Stavros Karlos said because the motions and subsequent paid parking program were for a trial period, “going to a plebiscite just doesn’t make sense, quite frankly.”
Karlos also took the opportunity to apologize again for his language at a previous meeting. However, he reiterated his point, which is that council’s efforts are to address issues in the community like traffic congestion.
“Nobody is sitting up here trying to destroy the economy of Banff,” he said. “We are trying to make difficult decisions on items that have been ongoing in Banff since I was a kid.”
Karlos pointed to the Transportation Master Plan and evidence-based decision-making when continuing the community discussion on this issue.
“At the end of the day we make our own solution in this community,” he said, adding that each resident of Banff should consider whether they are in favour of subsidizing parking with tax dollars. “These are hard questions and I believe we need relevant data to be able to answer them.”
Mayor Karen Sorensen, who has long lobbied for paid parking data to be gathered first in order for council to make an informed decision on the issue, said she is confident the two months of information collected during the trial will be useful.
“I was very anxious to receive as much data as possible,” she said. “I believe in the merit of seeing the trial through a slower period, however, I am comfortable the data from the last two months will be sufficient.”
Sorensen said Banff will continue to work with Parks Canada as she firmly believes any long-term solution will involve intercept parking.
On the financial side, Banff will overall be in the hole $52,402 as a result of ending the trial. That is comprised of $25,098 in cost savings from cancelling the contract with Vinci and an anticipated loss of $77,500 in revenue.
