User-pay parking coming to Banff

October 25, 1999
Source: Digital Banff news service

BANFF, 25 October 1999 - Banff Town Council voted this afternoon to implement user-pay parking for a one-year trial period. Voting in favour of the proposal were councilors Audrey Rogers (who presented the motion), Jane Newman, Chip Olver, and mayor Dennis Shuler.

Opposed were councilors John Stutz, Phillip Carmody, and Bob Haney.

User-pay parking will be implemented in the downtone core, with a residential permit program for the surrounding streets. According to the terms approved by council, Banff residents will enjoy two free hours of off-street parking every day.

According to the terms approved by council, Banff residents will enjoy two free hours of off-street parking every day.

Revenue from user-pay parking is to be applied to a transportation reserve fund, and used to support public transit, maintenance of parking spaces, and other transportation infrastructure.

After exhausting deliberation, councilors also approved holding a plebiscite on the issue of pay parking in May 2001, after the program has had a year’s trial.

Rogers’s motion was based on recommendations from the town’s Transportation Advisory Committee, a volunteer group of residents. The committee, in turn, based its conclusion on Banff’s Integrated Transportation Plan, which appeals to the vision of the town’s Community Plan to “develop a transportation system which enhances pedestrian movement and cycling” and “which is economically and environmentally sustainable.”

Steve Gasser, director of environmental services for the town of Banff, presented estimates of the amount greenhouse gas emission would be reduced by incentives to encourage car pooling and walking or biking to work. Councilors Rogers, Newman, and Olver cited the environmental benefits of the transportation plan.

“This plan will move our community into the next century with an environmentally friendly transportation system,” said Rogers.

“The Transportation Advisory Committee has spent two years on this proposal,” said Newman. “It’s being done on a trial basis.”

Olver said that she has been listening to parking concerns for five and a half years. “It’s time to try it. I don’t know if it’s going to work, but we assess it and then decide if we keep it or not.”

Olver noted that a world symposium of parking specialists was held in Banff this summer, and all five teams of experts that checked out the downtown recommended user-pay parking.

Speaking against the trial of user-pay parking, Stutz claimed that “Banff residents will be unhappy. There is public opposition against it. This provides further ammunition for people not to visit our community.”

Haney also refused to support the proposal. “We have traffic congestion for a very short period of time. Four or five months.” He added, regarding the Transportation Advisory Committee, “I am quite disappointed with that committee for not dealing with the timing issue.”

Carmody was put off by the Transportation Advisory Committee’s unanimous support for their recommendation. “I believe it’s healthier if you don’t see seven in favor,” he said. “It’s bizarre to me that we would contemplate putting it into law.”

When Shuler reminded Carmody that he had expressed support of user-pay parking during the election campaign last fall, Carmody replied that “between then and March, I changed my mind.”

Stutz attempted to introduce several amendments to the proposal which would have compromised its chance of success, such as restricting the seasonal and daily duration of the requirement to pay. “You can’t always walk all the time,” he explained. The amendments were defeated by Newman, Rogers, Olver and Shuler, except an amendment to provide “totally free” parking to town residents for two hours a day.

The town’s taxpayers currently contribute approximately $200,000 a year to operate and maintain “totally free” parking.

Reporting by Jim Swanson

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