If you’ve been reading the local newspaper, or haunting fAcebOok or X!tter, you’ve probably come across some bold assumptions, incorrect assertions, misinformation and/or disinformation about the Victoria staff parking report.
Staff published the report a week ago and it was discussed at the council table on Thursday. It’s been available for people to read, and some of the loudest voices about it … apparently didn’t read it.
That reflects on how much you can trust what those voices say. But a bigger issue is that the public has been misled.
So here for the public are a few corrections, and then I will give you a link to the staff report that has been available for the last week. I strongly encourage you to read all of it, and ignore the noise.
1. No, the city isn’t reducing parking by 30 percent downtown and 50 percent in outlying areas. And the staff report said no such thing.
2. No, the city isn’t doing that claimed reduction by reducing parking stalls in parkades. We don’t even own parkades in outlying areas.
3. In fact the city is planning to talk with businesses and others. As the report on the website for the past week has noted, there is an engagement process, and the city staff will be collecting lots of detailed data. When changes are coming that might affect businesses, the city has a well-established practice and track record of consulting businesses, and has been doing it that way for well over a decade.
4. No the City isn’t saying that people can’t have cars anymore. 🤦🏼♂️
5. No the city doesn’t expect that every resident is going to ride a bike, or that every plumber is going to use transit. Why would anyone expect that – or suggest it? But we do want it to be safe and practical for people regardless of how they get around. (That said, mode options aren’t the primary focus of the staff report. It’s mainly about parking regulation and provision.)
I will update this post as we go forward. As I said above, please read the staff report and materials, and ignore the noise from the peanut gallery.
City staff report, attachments, presentation and video of the meeting: https://pub-victoria.escribemeetings.com/Meeting.aspx?Id=65d3c6b9-0ba2-4b9a-b76e-35e3edd02f03&Agenda=Merged&lang=English&Item=12&Tab=attachments.
Update: Perhaps some of the genuine misunderstandings come from the technical language used in relation to off-street parking minimum requirements.
The city requires that new developments provide parking off street. This is a minimum requirement, and property owners can provide more. Sometimes they provide the minimum, and sometimes they provide more.
What is happening in dozens of cities across North America is that those minimum requirements for additional off street parking are being reduced or eliminated. That’s what is meant by “reductions.” It doesn’t mean that the overall quantity of parking in the city is being reduced.