Vancouver is winning war on cars

Vancouver’s battle against the car downtown has been so successful that parking lots saw sharp declines in use last year.

Thanks to a 35-per-cent tax hike on parking, the seductive appeal of the Canada Line, and a mantra that cars are bad and any other form of locomotion is good, the city’s parking corporation, EasyPark, saw a 9-per-cent drop in lot use.

Private companies also saw declines, though not as steep.

And although the city’s on-street parking revenue increased in 2011 by $2-million from the previous year, it fell short of projections. The final tally for 2011 was $38-million from on-street parking, instead of the $42-million projected, despite an additional 750 meters put in last year.

Now, the managers of the city-owned downtown lots are trying to figure out what else they might do with their increasing number of empty spaces – everything from mini-storage to roof gardens.

And that’s all good, says the city’s transportation director, Jerry Dobrovolny.

“By 2020, we’re aiming to have less than half of the trips downtown by car,” said Mr. Dobrovolny, who oversees a system where only about 60 per cent of people travel downtown in a private vehicle – already an unusually low number for a North American city.

It turns out 2011 was a key year in achieving Vancouver’s ultimate goal. “There was a dramatic change in the system, with the new tax and the Canada Line. We had had a system that was in equilibrium and now we’re all adjusting to a new reality,” he said.

Mike Poirier, the regional vice-president for Diamond Parking operations, said the company saw small increases in its suburban lots near SkyTrain stations, which indicated to him that people were choosing to park in the suburbs and take transit for the last leg.

EasyPark statistics also showed large numbers of cancellations by Richmond residents of year-round parking spots in 2011.

Bob Ransford, a Richmond-based development consultant, said he now frequently parks at the River Rock Casino – $2.50 for 24 hours – and travels downtown by Canada Line to save himself the hassle and cost of parking downtown.

Parking companies were also hit in 2011 with new taxes from two sources – a 21-per-cent increase from TransLink, and a 12-per-cent HST tax that was applied to the TransLink tax as well as the base price.

“That had a dramatic affect on parking,” Mr. Poirier said. He also blamed new bike lanes for the drop.

All the changes are prompting Mr. Dobrovolny to wonder if the city can reduce even more of its requirements for parking in new buildings constructed downtown, if the pattern continues.

The city capped the number of public downtown parking spaces in 1997 at 35,000, in order to drive home the message that Vancouver was not going to do any more to accommodate cars. Since then, the city has seen the number of car trips into downtown decline steadily, even though the number of overall trips has increased as more people work and live downtown.

That’s in stark contrast to almost every other North American city. In Toronto, the city parking managers aren’t seeing any drop in demand for parking.

“We’re not experiencing that in Toronto,” said a somewhat bemused Gwyn Thomas, president of the Toronto Parking Authority, when told about the Vancouver situation. The Toronto authority brings in about $140-million a year and was only $11,000 short of that mark in 2011, he said.

Toronto manages 56,000 spaces on the street and in lots, with a top rate of $3.50 an hour on the street and $5.50 in lots downtown, compared to Vancouver’s top street-parking charge of $6 an hour.

“We’re always creating new spaces where they’re needed,” Mr. Thomas said. As far as he knows, there’s no drop in the number of cars coming into the city.

After the autocrats win their war on car owners they will set their sights on home owners...

Looks like Vancouver is finally winning it's transit wars. Good to see someone doing something productive in that regard.

Good story. You put the price of parking up and people take transit. And only in Vancouver. Here in Toronto they refused to build the Allen expressway downtown 25 years ago and downtown traffic is not too bad. I would say it's at it's limit.

Seems like, more than the price, it's the Canada line that has people taking transit. Once you make transit as convienient as driving people will use it. And personally, that's how I'd like to see our reliance on personal transportation decrease, by giving people reasonable alternatives rather than simply punishing them through taxes and fees.

Making transit convenient is certainly the way to go. But that costs money, ie taxes and fees. An alternative would be road pricing, ie tolls. Then drivers would see all the subsidies they enjoy in free roads and bridges. (Wouldn't hurt me too much, since I drive so little).

The Canada line surpassed expectations. But, as I say, there's a line in a different direction that should have been built instead, since that's where the huge population growth is in metro Vancouver. The Canada line was built for the Olympics at huge cost to meet deadlines. It's called the Canada line since the Feds kicked in a big chunk of the dough, so thanks Canada.

Not here. We have an integrated transit system for metro Vancouver. But the outlying regions are still very poorly served by transit. We're still way behind where we should be in providing convenient transit unless you're close to Vancouver city. Even there it could be better. The Socreds (ie conservatives) chose to invest in skytrain tech (very expensive) for Expo 86. Then the NDP built a very poorly designed line to service it's voting regions. Then our last billions were spent on the Canada line to bring visitors in from the airport for the Olympics. One poor decision after another.

Skytrain is nice - fast, no holdups. But by the sound of things, LRT is way cheaper and so you get way more bang for your buck.

STAY AWAY FROM MY CARS

I have a question. Why do people post entire articles without using the system in place already, and without linking?

Funny, I never heard a declaration fo war - Vancouver must be in the legal gray areas like Camp X-Ray! :lol:

Seriously though, public transit is increasing in usage because of price, not because people suddenly feel altruistic. As long as they keep jacking up parking rates, all the city is doing is making sure the rich have a place to park and the poor (everyone else) rides the peasant wagon.

Edmonton has similar plans for LRT criss-crossing the capital region, but the costs are astronomical (tens of billions of dollars for all the routes 'planned') and without the Feds or province willing to kick in a lot of extra dough, it'll be decades before it's all built.