If you have ever driven in downtown Squamish and circled blocks trying to find an empty parking stall, you won’t be surprised that a recent survey indicates parking is a significant problem downtown.
Of the 305 Downtown Squamish Parking surveys completed, 69 per cent of respondents said parking is an issue.
The newly formed Downtown Squamish Business Improvement Association parking committee ran the online survey from late February until March 3.
“When you are downtown every day looking onto Cleveland Avenue, it is very obvious there’s a parking problem,” said committee chair Nancy McCartney, who also owns Garibaldi Graphics downtown.
The survey was a way to find out if other business owners felt the same way, McCartney said, adding the survey was open to anyone who wanted to answer it.
Of the respondents, more than 90 per cent live in Squamish and almost 80 per cent come downtown between one and seven times per week, the survey showed. Respondents said they head downtown for a variety of reasons, from picking up mail to going to work to shopping.
Ninety per cent of survey respondents drive to get downtown, but 49 per cent said they would take the bus if transit were more efficient.
About 33 per cent of people coming downtown have small children, according to the survey.
Sixty per cent said they hear of complaints from customers about parking and 66 per cent said parking issues impact their business.
Sixty per cent said their employer provides them with parking, and 84 per cent said they would be unwilling to pay for a designated stall.
In terms of dealing with the issue, 60 per cent of respondents said two-hour parking limits should be enforced downtown, while 63 per cent said they would support a central multi-level parkade downtown, were it to be built within the next five years.
As a result of the survey, the Downtown Squamish Business Improvement Association has formally requested a joint committee be struck between the District of Squamish and DSBIA with a commitment to address parking downtown in the short and long term, according to McCartney.
“There needs to be some solutions very quickly,” she said.
Mayor Patricia Heintzman said council will discuss forming a joint committee to address parking. “We need to figure out a strategy to accomplish this, especially as these empty lots get filled in with new buildings,” she said.
The district parking reserve has $363,700, but Heintzman said infrastructure for parking is expensive. A parkade, for example, which is an idea that has been bandied about for many years, is extremely costly at roughly $30,000 per parking stall – “a lot of money,” according to Heintzman. But she said a parkade, perhaps as part of the redevelopment of the municipal hall property, is still worth considering.
The municipality has a role, as do downtown businesses themselves, she said.
Building owners could lease empty lots and the district can perhaps have more enforcement of parking times, Heintzman suggested, and some people can consider car sharing.
The active transportation plan the district is working on aims to get people out of their cars and walking or biking, which would help alleviate the problem, she said.
The mayor noted that people are becoming used to the “new reality” of a bustling community that means at certain times of day, they may have to park a block or two from their destination and walk.
