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Parking a garden of confusion

T he discussion about our downtown parking problem is beginning to resemble a Confucian garden, or more accurately, a garden of confusion, where a hundred flowers bloom and a thousand thoughts contend.

The discussion about our downtown parking problem is beginning to resemble a Confucian garden, or more accurately, a garden of confusion, where a hundred flowers bloom and a thousand thoughts contend.

The Downtown Squamish Business Improvement Association (DSBIA) parking committee wants the district to enforce existing bylaws to keep drivers from monopolizing parking spaces. Councillor Karen Elliott disagrees. She says a parking etiquette campaign and humorous signage should be the next step before enforcement.

Councillor Susan Chapelle believes downtown pay parking during peak hours would open more spaces since drivers are less likely to linger too long if the meter is running. But critics say shoppers will bypass the area and flock to free parking at local malls. Meanwhile, council has directed district staff to mandate angled parking and install signs with clearly stated parking time limits. According to some observers both policies are simply band-aid solutions to a much bigger issue.

Another possible option is a downtown pedestrian-only zone. Until recently, long-time local barber Tony Bortolotto, whose fiefdom is the Chicago Hair Gallery on Cleveland Avenue, was strongly opposed to that concept because it was bound to stifle business.

And for years there was a looming fear among some of his patrons, totally unfounded, of course, that if he was pestered too much about the prospect of a car-free downtown the maestro of scissors and shears would quickly convert a requested minor trim into a radical buzz cut, or a Mohawk. These days his opinion has changed. He says a Whistler-style pedestrian village could work in Squamish if the district constructs a multi-storey parkade on one of the empty lots downtown.

According to our mayor, at the moment the district’s parking reserve is $363,700 and each stall in a parking garage will cost roughly $30,000. In other words, 12 parking spaces would drain that meagre slush fund in a hurry. However, she believes a parkade constructed in conjunction with the redevelopment of the municipal hall property is a possibility sometime in the future.

But we live in the here and now. Nancy McCartney, the chair of the DSBIA parking committee, says solutions need to be found “very quickly.” DSBIA executive director Bianca Peters points to young mothers and seniors who are stymied by public transit inefficiencies and who require parking in close proximity to downtown facilities. She believes the funding for more parking alternatives is available. And she could be right. According to municipal building permit reports, more than 250 million dollars in development has been launched in Squamish since 2013. Tapping more energetically into the district’s levies on that mother lode should be a next step for the parking wonks at muni hall.

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