Council brainstormed some quick and relatively easy fixes to the parking crunch downtown at its committee of the whole meeting Tuesday.
A staff report drafted in collaboration with the Downtown Squamish Business Improvement Association parking committee determined a primary way to make more parking available downtown is for the district to enforce its existing bylaws, but council agreed to take a less punitive approach, for now.
The report was in response to complaints about a lack of downtown parking that arose in a Downtown Squamish Business Improvement Association survey in which 69 per cent of respondents said parking is an issue in the downtown core.
Some of the immediate changes the councillors directed the district to work toward are putting in angled parking from Victoria Avenue south on Cleveland Avenue, and installing creative signage that clearly states parking time limits and directs people to longer-term parking.
Councillor Karen Elliott said she would prefer to see an education campaign and creative, humorous signage before enforcement as a way to change people’s behaviour.
“We are trying to move people to come downtown and enjoy the downtown,” she said. “I think we would get way more complaints about parking if we start dishing out tickets in the short term.”
District staff will also consider directing employee parking outside the downtown core; installing another handicapped spot downtown; designating the short, diagonal ends of parking areas for motorcycles; maximizing space for the most possible spots; reviewing loading and police zones in front of the Chieftain Hotel; and looking into directing buses and RVs to appropriate parking spots. Council also suggested the time limit on the two municipal lots on Cleveland Avenue should be four hours.
Mayor Patricia Heintzman said the district is trying to remove the chain-link fence along Loggers Lane and find ways to have more parking along that road. “One of the visions is to provide parking along Loggers Lane as well as separated bike and pedestrian access along Loggers Lane,” she said. “That may be a year or two away…. The challenge is it is a truck route too.”
Currently the district does not collect parking enforcement fines and has not since 2008, the report to council states. “Parking enforcement has been complaint-driven and is prioritized the same as other calls to bylaw enforcement,” the report states.
Councillor Susan Chapelle agreed education and signage is important, but said ultimately as parking spots become a commodity, people will eventually have to pay for them. “Free parking makes people behave badly, and that is a fact everywhere,” she said, adding she would rather see the focus on making the downtown a walking and biking area, rather than a car-dependent community.
