The Blue Agave Forum: The Blue Agave Forum -> Free parking extended downtown during construction

I was surprised there was any debate let alone opposition, over the request to provide free parking downtown during the reconstruction of the main street, last Monday. After all, as nice as the revitalization will be when it's finished, the construction is having a massive impact on downtown businesses. No one can drive through the centre block, nor park on it. For the first two weeks, the fencing separated east and west sides of the street, which further dampened sales.

Council should be doing everything it can to relieve the pain we caused. The vote, while not close, was 7-2, with Deputy Mayor Cooper and Councillor McNabb voting against.

People have been staying away from the downtown, unsure if businesses are open or where to park. I've personally spoken to at least a dozen customers in my store who admitted that, since construction began, they'd stopped going downtown. So where are they shopping? Elsewhere - the malls, big box stores, or even going to Wasaga Beach and Barrie. The downtown is hurting.

And of course there's the recession. Despite governmental claims that it's over, it can still be felt here. I haven't found a single Collingwood business person who says sales have recovered to previous years' levels.

There is a strong contingent of people on council who want to end the free parking downtown already, probably a majority of council as I count it*. I've written in the past about the false economics of parking and the inappropriateness of large urban models of parking and municipal finances being superimposed on small town Collingwood..

But this isn't about the principle of free parking - it's about the impact of the year-long construction on local businesses. The BIA recognized the problem immediately and asked for an extension of the plan to municipal lots on the side streets, as well.

As The Connection reported,

Quote

That made me scratch my head in wonder.

Uh, yes, Tim, people drive downtown. They drive to the malls, too. If they're coming from any of the growing number of sprawl-like subdivisions growing up like mushrooms around the periphery of town, they HAVE to drive because there are no local shops to walk or bicycle to in their neighbourhood (in part because we haven't forced the issue of requiring small-scale commercial units withing large-scale residential zones). These subdivisions are all at least two kilometers from the downtown, some are much further.

Given that the demographics here show our population has a higher-than-provincial-average number of seniors, does McNabb think that charging for parking will encourage seniors to strap on their Nikes and hike downtown for their cup of coffee and a bagel? Or will it encourage them to drive elsewhere where they can park and not worry about getting a ticket while they socialize with friends or shop?

Methinks the latter.

Anyone on a weekly trip to buy groceries or clothes for a family won't be walking or even bicycling if they have a choice. Not to mention the snow we have here for three-five months of the year. Who wants to lug four or five full grocery bags a kilometer or two in the snow?

And if we block off both sides of an entire block of the downtown, where does McNabb think people are going to park? To me it's obvious they have to park in the back lots simply because that's where the spaces are. What's the logic of offering free parking on a street where about a third of the parking has been removed, but not in the lots which - according to our own experts in the latest parking report - are under-utilized already?

Plus there's the free parking anyone can get at the old Price Chopper lot downtown, which sees 100-200 cars a day. Let's see - park free in the PC lot or pay $1 and risk a ticket in the municipal lot 100 feet north?

Will free parking encourage people to drive downtown? I hope so. I hope they fill the lots and in doing so fill the stores and put a smile on the merchants and business owners.

Paid parking discourages people. Period. It's that simple. Parking has always been a challenge for downtowns and an integral part of the competition between malls and downtowns. Our downtown is looking for ways to encourage business, not send it to the malls, and free parking is one way they have said will help them.

People will drive to the malls or big box stores where parking is free. They'll drive further to shop simply because of the convenience of free parking. People here will drive to malls in Barrie, even though the cost of getting there is higher than the cost of paid parking downtown, simply because no one wants the inconvenience of having to rush out and feed a meter in the middle of holiday shopping. Or the annoyance of returning to your car and finding a ticket on the windshield.

When it comes time to debate the issues parking - free or otherwise - downtown - I wonder how many at the table will side with the mayor or will side with the downtown?

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* It's a recommendation of the parking committee, on which the mayor sits as the council rep. I've commented in the past that, as mayor he is already ex officio on every committee, so there was no need for the mayor to take that seat unless he wanted to block another member of council from taking it and expressing views contrary to his own. Guess which councillor applied for it?
**I appreciate we need some control and oversight: we don't want lots or streets full of people who park free all day, thus making it difficult if not impossible for a latecomer to find a place to park to shop, eat or do business downtown. We need to encourage people to move on. That can be accomplished by a compromise: making the main street paid parking with a reasonable grace period, and offering two hours free in the lots, with more stringent enforcement.