Bear with me, gentle reader, if you think free parking is a gimme, for you should know that I live in a city renowned for what we locals lovingly<\/em> (that’s sarcasm) call Parking Nazis. Actually called Commissionaires, they seem to be paid via a bounty system, for they are nothing if not avid in their pursuit of parking law laggards. Consequently, downtown parking has become a source of endless local complaint.<\/p>\n Until now, I never had too much sympathy with those issues. First, I live close by and can walk downtown. Second, I know where all the city-owned parkades are and I don’t mind paying a couple of dollars to park there if I do happen to drive in. I share the common dislike of parking meters, mainly because I can’t trust myself to get back to the meter in time (and I know the Parking Nazis will strike if I don’t).<\/p>\n I started to feel a little uncomfortable when I heard rumors<\/strong> that our city council (like many<\/a>, always hungry for more revenue with which to pay its comfortably-salaried upper management at City Hall) might put parking meters into “village” (neighborhood) centers (like Cook Street Village<\/a>, a neighborhood node). That just seemed greedy – and wrong. Especially since a neighboring municipality like Oak Bay<\/a>, which has a thriving shopping area, charges nothing for parking. Downtown Victoria shoppers, in contrast, seem harassed and tortured – and now the city wants to extend that anxious climate into the neighborhoods? Not the way to go, council.<\/p>\n But the clincher<\/strong> to my change of heart came yesterday when I drove to another neighboring municipality, Saanich<\/a>, which is now home to a brand-spanking-new shopping center called Uptown<\/a>. (Note the name’s positioning<\/em>, a challenge to Downtown…)<\/p>\n I needed to buy a gadget …and the stores in Uptown<\/a> had the best selection. And when I got there, the underground parking garage was full and everywhere I looked I saw shoppers. It was like a bustling little mini-downtown – pretty much the opposite of what our dying downtown<\/a> looks like these days.<\/p>\n For an eye-popping “fly-through” of what the mall is supposed to look like when fully built out, take 4 1\/2 minutes for the following video:<\/p>\n http:\/\/youtu.be\/U1M4qfRQSXM<\/p>\n While there weren’t (yet) as many people milling about the open spaces (too much still under construction), it was lively and bustling. Full of people.<\/p>\n And that brings me back to my heretical thought:<\/p>\n Maybe, if you’re not Manhattan or any truly large city that actually has a functioning CBD (Central Business District) versus a relatively poky tourist-and-government-offices downtown as Victoria has, you should lay off the draconian parking rules.<\/strong><\/p>\n Like Saanich’s Uptown (or even, on a good day, Oak Bay’s main street), Palo Alto’s streets were also filled to the brim with people spending money and keeping the economy humming along. While bus service (and commuter train service) and bicycles are popular there, so is the car. The city recognizes this and makes it easy for those people who do drive into town to find parking – and it lets them park for 2 hours for free, right downtown. Here in Greater Victoria, too many people say they avoid downtown because the Parking Nazis and the city’s general unfriendliness to shoppers (whose suburban mindset means they bring cars) infuriates them.<\/p>\n But at the same time, we don’t have a downtown<\/em> residential population capable of sustaining the downtown economy – which means we still need that suburban shopper with his or her suburban mindset. So why not make those shoppers feel more welcome? Right now, they’re heading to Uptown<\/a> in droves – as are some businesses formerly located downtown, because they need to go where the shoppers are.<\/p>\n Yes, in an ideal world we wouldn’t be catering to cars – and if we were a real city, we wouldn’t need to cater to suburbanites either, and we could afford to skin them for parking. But we aren’t, and we can’t. When your downtown is dying, it’s probably not the smartest thing to make it even more impenetrable to convenience …especially when the suburban mall is “conveniencing” its ass off to grab thousands of shoppers who now have even fewer reasons to come downtown.<\/p>\n I know this is apples and oranges, but I can’t help but be reminded of arguments around the debt ceiling\/ economy debate. The idiot Republicans want to stand on principle, saying we must “balance the budget” by cutting it (while not introducing any new taxes – this is voodoo economics 2-dot-zilch). Some saner folks<\/a> are arguing instead that we should forget the cuts and focus on getting the economy going again – and then we can deal with the debt.<\/p>\n I feel that way about our downtown: let’s see if we can get an economy going down there again, and forget about standing on the principle (enforced by Parking Nazis for the benefit of the City’s coffers) that cars are bad, that we should all be happily jogging or cycling downtown, and that we should pretend we have a decent public transportation system that makes using a car unnecessary (we don’t).<\/p>\nWhat changed my mind?<\/h3>\n
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