The following article appeared in the June 22 edition of the Guelph Tribune:
City council figures it might be better to provide an hour or two of free downtown parking in lots and parkades, rather than on the streets.
By a vote of 8-5, council voted Monday to send the issue back to staff for further study, instead of approving a 12-month pilot project to see how eliminating the meters would help boost the downtown.
The decision came after consultant Barbara Leibel told council that she doesn’t favour the two-hour free on-street parking that was recommended by city staff. Guelph would be much better off providing free parking in lots, rather than on the streets, she said.
Free on-street parking is widely offered in Ontario, and “every single municipality indicated it was a nightmare of enforcement,” said Leibel, who was hired by the city to review providing free on-street downtown parking.
Leibel added that it can result in more tickets, not fewer, as enforcement staff try to prevent the system from being abused – such as by people moving their cars every two hours to a new spot on the street.
Mayor Karen Farbridge, who pledged during last fall’s civic election campaign to press for two-hour free parking on downtown streets if elected, voted against Coun. Mike Salisbury’s deferral motion along with councillors Lise Burcher, Ian Findlay, June Hofland and Karl Wettstein.
“Parking is always the number 1 barrier to users of downtown,” Farbridge said, “and it is the on-street parking that is behind the perceptual issue.”
The only way to put that perception to rest is to do a pilot project with two-hour free on-street parking to see how that works, she said, urging council to “have the courage” to test a removal of the meters.
Findlay, a downtown business owner for 25 years, said the parking meter is the “single most reviled image” of the downtown.
The downtown has “an image as an unfriendly place, because people can park free everywhere else,” said Wettstein. “If we don’t take the image of the meter out, it will come back to haunt us.”
Pushing hard for the one-year pilot was Audrey Jamal, general manager of the Downtown Board of Management.
“We believe this will really kick-start the downtown revitalization we all want to see,” said Jamal, who’d told an earlier committee meeting that Guelph has an “economically depressed downtown” with “sagging” sales per square foot.
Guelph used to provide an hour of free parking in some downtown lots and parkades, and the idea of doing this again was attractive to several councillors.
With free parking for the first two hours in parkades, “if you stay too long, you won’t be fined. You just pay on the way out,” said Coun. Kathleen Farrelly.
She said free on-street parking could result in people “hogging” those choice parking spots, instead of using them to shop nearby.
It would cost the city over $300,000 to provide the first hour of parking free in the Baker Street Parking Lot and the West Parkade, council was told. Providing the first two hours free would cost more.
A one-year pilot project for two-hour free on-street parking could cost $686,500 in lost meter revenue, along with $3,000 for signs and about $5,000 for a communications campaign, said a city staff report.
Coun. Bob Bell, who favoured free two-hour parking in downtown lots, said quick turnover of parking spots on downtown streets is important.
People should be willing to pay for parking close to their destination, and they should be able to save if they are willing to walk a ways from a lot or parkade to their destination, he said.