District of Squamish is planning to do a scoping study for paid parking in the community.
According to the budget documents, district plans to do a ‘scoping study and create an implementation plan’ for a paid parking program in town.
District also plans to hire a consultant to redo the 2017 parking utilization study to evaluate current parking demands in the downtown area.
The cost for the study is $50,000, district plans to award the contract for the study in 2022.
District has been planning on creating a paid parking program in Squamish for the last few years. District’s ‘parking strategy 2016-2020’ plan had earlier called for a paid parking program for Downtown Squamish.
This program was to be completed by the end of 2018, but was delayed.
“Any paid parking program will take time to develop and would need substantial outreach with the public and the BIA / Chamber and other stakeholders,” notes the parking strategy document from 2016.
In 2017, district also released a Downtown Parking Study, which made five recommendations, which are.
Reconsider and adjust current hourly parking zones
Increase the supply of existing on street parking stalls,
Install more and improved bike lanes downtown
Identify a potential location for a parking structure
Review options and opportunities for paid parking
No surprise. Notice that making developers include adequate parking in their plans is not an option!
The BIA should make a stink about this. Paid parking for their businesses will be send a certain percentile of consumers to malls on the highways where they don’t have to pay. Bad idea.
When did our small town of Squamish become a money grab! This is disappointing. It’s already bad enough trying to find parking now you what people to pay for it! I don’t approve of this at all unless you are making one big parking lot and not making us pay for the existing parking.
Why not make Cleveland one way (south direction) between Winnipeg St. and Vancouver St. with
angle parking on either side of the street. This would significantly increase parking availability, make parking easier (as opposed to parallel parking) and IMO make the street safer for pedestrians.
Good idea Jim