Editor:
If Banff Town council’s goal is to merely enrich the Town’s coffers, increase rather than decrease traffic chaos and alienate visitors and residents alike, then introduce pay parking.
This issue has refused to die for over 13 years since residents soundly and decisively defeated a motion to introduce pay parking in a 2000 plebiscite, and still continue to oppose the idea.
Council continues to ignore the fact that pay parking is not the answer and in fact, will do more harm than good. It is a proven fact that pay parking is a cash cow and nothing else.
Pay parking will reduce the “visitor experience” which council is trying to boost, by adding insult to injury for first having to pay for park entry, then pay high prices for goods and food, and then get slapped again for parking on top of it. Shoppers, diners, and sightseers do not want to be hurrying back to their vehicles to replenish the voracious parking meters every hour.
In fact, according to the Town’s own survey, most visitors desire three to six hours of parking. If they are not willing to pay more, they will either just get in their vehicle and leave, taking their business-coveted spending money elsewhere, or add to the traffic congestion looking for another place to park.
It will not take them long to realize they can park on residential streets for free and avoid paying. This only serves to displace and anger residents who are forced to park on the street in front of their residences. A parked car is one that is not adding to the moving congestion of the streets.
This is not so much of a parking problem as a perception one. The fact is that people don’t want to walk any more than five to 10 minutes away from their vehicles. They covet the convenience of having it close at hand and do not want to use distant, ugly and theft-haven interceptor lots, especially if not served by transit.
And, if forced to pay to get buses from distant parking lots to downtown, they might as well just park downtown anyway. Even on a busy summer Saturday afternoon, the Bear Street parkade still has anywhere from 30-60 stalls available.
From its own survey (March 2013), parkades are the least popular among visitors and are not suitable for bigger vehicles. Why build another expensive parkade when the ones we already have are underused?
The Town claims there is a parking stall shortfall of 125, which is expected to swell to over 600 in 10 years. Clearly, adding more parking stalls is not sustainable in a fixed boundary town like Banff. The appetite for more will always exceed the capacity to provide.
If Banff’s economic “growth” comes from regional visitation, then there needs to be a greater regionally integrated mass transit system starting with the return of VIA passenger rail service to Banff and beyond.
The solution is clearly not pay parking or mindlessly adding more stalls indefinitely, but rather finding alternative ways of bringing people to town other than by private vehicle. Having all these races and special events in Banff certainly does not help the traffic situation any either. Besides, Town bylaw can’t even enforce skateboarders racing recklessly down busy Banff Avenue among unsuspecting pedestrians, how can they expect to enforce parking meters?
Mark A. Bowes,
Banff
