Downtown BIZ supports parking meter fee increase

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This article was published 22/11/2017 (2494 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Mayor Brian Bowman’s proposed $1 per hour on-street parking fee hike has the support of downtown businesses hoping to free up more short-term parking spaces for their customers, Downtown Business Improvement Zone chief executive Stefano Grande said.

“We are in favour of parking rates being used as a tool to move longer-term parkers into parkades,” Grande said Thursday.

Bowman unveiled the rate hike Wednesday in his proposed 2018 budget, which also proposes an increase in transit fares by 25 cents, meaning a ride for an adult paying the full fare would be $2.95.

Grande said the Downtown BIZ was hoping for the hike to apply to high-demand zones only — the Exchange District and the Sports, Hospitality and Entertainment District among them — but still supports the mayor’s decision to apply it across the board downtown.

Increasing rates helps the on-street businesses survive by discouraging longer-term on-street parking by residents, office workers or students, he said.

“There are about 3,000 on-street spots and about 30,000 in total downtown, and everybody wants that prime spot,” he said.

Loren Remillard, president of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, said the city was clear the hike was partly to raise revenues, but was also about promoting parking churn, so on-street parking becomes short-term in nature. Such churn is seen as vital in increasing pedestrian traffic past shops and service businesses.

“We need a downtown designed for people, not cars,” he said.

“The danger, when you hear rates are rising, is failing to see how that fits into the larger strategy, which is to increase people traffic downtown.”

Remillard said parking and public transit should work hand-in-hand, and restricting one and encouraging the other is critical to a vibrant downtown.

“We would like to see less single-occupant car traffic downtown and more public transit and car-pooling,” he said.

The chamber is still lobbying for extended hours for parking meters, which is a tool to move longer-term evening parkers into parkades, he said.

“That’s a continuing discussion. We have not heard nor seen anything to say it’s imminent.”

kelly.taylor@freepress.mb.ca