The following article appeared in the June 29 edition of the Guelph Tribune:
A 12-month test of free two-hour parking on downtown streets is happening in the face of striking skepticism from four city councillors who changed their votes on the issue this week.
“I am almost 100 per cent certain it will fail,” Coun. Maggie Laidlaw said of the one-year pilot program to do away with metered street parking in a bid to help downtown businesses. “I think it is a red herring, but I will vote for it against my better judgment,” she said.
Laidlaw sided with the majority on June 18 when council voted 8-5 to send the issue back to city staff for further study, rather than approve the pilot program that was recommended by staff but not by a consultant hired by the city. So did councillors Vicki Beard, Leanne Piper and Mike Salisbury.
However, at a special council meeting held Monday to reconsider the issue, these four councillors voted for the pilot program. This allowed the recommendation to pass 9-4, with councillors Bob Bell, Christine Billings, Kathleen Farrelly and Gloria Kovach voting no.
Farrelly told council she’d been lobbied by fellow councillors to change her vote. But she still considered the pilot a “backwards” step, preferring limited free parking in city lots and parkades, she said.
Piper said she’d decided to support the pilot because council needs to lay to rest, once and for all, the idea that free on-street parking is “a magic bag of beans” that will solve the downtown’s problems.
“If we can get this out of the way as the be-all and end-all,” council can then look for more “creative” ways to help the downtown, said Piper.
Beard echoed Piper, saying, “I don’t think this is going to work, but it needs to come off the table.”
Salisbury said he doubted it’s a “viable” solution to downtown woes, but he’d decided to support the pilot to see whether the “peripheral benefits” of free two-hour on-street parking would outweigh the drawbacks.
He agreed with opponents of the pilot who say it’s “backwards” to reward drivers who park on the street near their destinations, while making those prepared to walk a little further from city lots and parkades keep paying for parking.
Salisbury said he’s looking forward to “more progressive parking solutions, as opposed to marketing solutions, in the future.”
Peter Cartwright, the city’s economic development manager, told council the pilot will address the perception that downtown Guelph isn’t a “friendly” place to visit. The pilot aims to make the downtown a “more user friendly place,” addressing concerns of existing businesses and aiming to attract new businesses downtown, he said.
The city consultant’s review of the experience of other Ontario cities that have tried two-hour free on-street parking was “inconclusive,” Cartwright said, noting that some of those cities have terminated their free parking programs. Staff felt a pilot was the best way to see if capping the meters would provide an economic stimulus to Guelph’s downtown, he said.
Free two-hour on-street parking was championed by Mayor Karen Farbridge during the civic election campaign last fall.
Farbridge, looking relieved and very pleased just before Monday’s vote, said she’d heard for a decade that the downtown’s problems relate to on-street parking. She complimented staff for the idea of doing the one-year test.
“We need to get this off the table,” Farbridge said. “I am prepared for this to succeed, and I am prepared for this to fail.”
Audrey Jamal, general manager of the Downtown Board of Management, said many of the parking spots in downtown lots and parkades are allotted to permit holders, and there is a waiting list for permits.
There’s a shortage of parking that is likely to worsen in the short term, she said, arguing that bringing back limited free parking in lots and parkades isn’t the answer right now.
“Until we deal with our (parking) supply issues, we can’t go that route responsibly,” Jamal said.
The city offered the first hour of parking free in the city’s East and West parkades beginning in 1983 to attract users to the new parking garages at what was then the Eaton Centre. At the request of the Downtown Board of Management, this program was extended to the Baker Street Parking Lot. The downtown board and the owner of the Eaton Centre partially subsidized the program, a staff report noted.
This program was discontinued in 1998 when the city bought the Eaton Centre to build a new arena, and by that time the percentage of drivers exiting during the first hour had risen to 70 per cent.
People “did rush in and rush out” to avoid second-hour charges, and there was no incentive for them to stay longer in the downtown, said Anna Marie O’Connell, the city’s parking facilities supervisor.
Five downtown business owners appeared as delegations Monday, and four of them urged council to support the pilot.
“I feel the downtown needs to thrive during the daytime, as it does at night” when drivers don’t need to pay at the meters, said retail merchant Jenn Lamarre.
Barb Minett, co-owner of The Bookshelf, said she’s listened to people’s “anger and frustration” with the metered parking for 34 years.
Farbridge “won by an overwhelming majority. People want to see a busy downtown,” Minett said.
However, Clare McNaul, a downtown merchant for eight years, said limited free parking in lots and parkades would be “a better way to go and a good deal less expensive” than free two-hour on-street parking.
McNaul said that when she recently asked 41 downtown merchants what they thought, 35 of them agreed with her.
‘I am prepared for this to succeed, and I am prepared for this to fail’