Funny, isn’t it, that normally, if a municipal government was seen to be tossing away $50,000 with nothing to show for it, many citizens would be up in arms, in alarm.
Yet there’s no doubt that Banff Residents Against Paid Parking (BRAPP) will simply attribute the loss of revenue as simply the cost of a victory celebration for a trial period of paid parking being halted early (page 14).
We hope that once the Town of Banff starts its annual budget deliberations, there are no outcries about funds being wasted.
Here at the Outlook, we’re neither for nor against paid parking, but we think it’s a shame that, after being instituted, the paid parking trial wasn’t allowed to run its course over the three months it had originally been planned for.
Unlike BRAPP, we would like to see all the data collected from an August through October trial. Unlike BRAPP, though, we have nothing to rejoice in the trial being halted early.
Another funny thing is, being that the Town had targeted three months of parking data as an important part of the trial, halting it early may, in fact, skew the results in favour of paid parking. As it stands, the data collected will now feature a couple of busier months (August and September) – without the addition of the less busy shoulder month of October.
By shortening the timespan studied in the paid parking trial, stats now may well show that paid parking is a good idea, based on busier months, while not including the less busy month of October.
Much like studying the statistics of an NHLer for only part of a given season, it would be difficult to expand that knowledge into anything useful. Should Sidney Crosby’s numbers be viewed over just a two-month span, say, his stats may not include a wrist injury, injured supporting teammates, a bout of the flu or simply a scoring drought.
So, just like Crosby scoring just three times over a couple of months, data from that short a span is likely meaningless at the end of a Stanley Cup playoff run.
Still, should data from a shortened trial not indicate paid parking is the way to go in Banff to ensure visitors pay their share for adding to the town’s congestion, and help with the reduction of congestion and traffic issues, there remains the elusive dream of a taxpayer dollars-supported parkade.
During all the angst and venom that spilled out during paid parking debates, a popular fallback always seemed to be another parkade. A price tag of about $20 million has been attached to construction of a second parkade in Banff, should space ever be found for one, but the possibility of decades of taxpayers shelling out for a parkade doesn’t seem to have the same negative connotation as the introduction of paid parking.
In many municipalities, taxpayers would rather users pay for infrastructure they use, but possibly that’s not the case in Banff.
In the end, though, no matter what the data says, BRAPPers won’t be happy unless it shows that paid parking won’t help with snarled traffic and congestion in town. Any suggestion that paid parking is the way to go will merely be seen as confirmation that the present council has it out for its citizens.
Stay tuned …
