Our parking problem is as tricky to solve as it is annoying, especially downtown.
Many of us are impacted by it.
The staff at The Squamish Chief feel it, too, at our Second Avenue office.
Most of us must park a fairly inconvenient—especially in the rain or snow—walk from our office.
Some days, we end up moving our vehicles every two hours to one of the 250-ish short-term spots.
Two of us have received tickets for forgetting to do so.
While side street parking is permitted, we have run into two problems: one is those spots are often taken up by residents who, for whatever reason, don’t park in their driveways or garages.
Secondly, we have run into the issue of residents yelling at us or leaving notes on our cars telling us to park elsewhere. This is offside of the residents but is a deterrent.
Further, from December to March, many sides of those streets are no-parking zones reserved for snow clearing.
To be fair, frankly, a few of us live close enough to walk or ride to work, so the lack of parking is a good incentive to do so.
Except, to do our jobs well, we should be out meeting sources and attending events.
Considering the less-than-ideal bus schedule, you can understand why even the employees who can leave their car at home don’t.
We’ve had staff who take the bus, but it isn’t convenient for the employee or employer, again, given the transit schedule.
On the other hand, there is a cost to complaining, which pressures council to prioritize vehicle spaces over human ones.
Experts note a national trend of parking and other such complaints kiboshing affordable housing, during a housing crisis.
“We have to accept that people can and should choose to live without a personal vehicle and that we have to invest in alternative transportation modes that aren’t just single-use vehicles,” Coun. Maggie Burton, of St. John’s, N.L., recently told The Canadian Press.
In her community, some residents’ outrage over parking killed a 96-unit apartment that included 40 units without parking.
“Car-brain has got to go,” she added.
Agreed.
The District is working to make this a more active-transportation-friendly place, but we aren’t there yet.
We don’t have much available muni land, and we can’t afford a parkade; in 2020, a District report found it would cost $50,000 to $63,000 per spot (for a total of between $10 and $25 million).
Thus, we have a parking problem of almost paralyzing proportions.
Whatever the District and council decide to do about it, better to act than to keep parking the issue.
