City delves into downtown parking patterns

“• to integrate principles of Transportation Demand Management – programs implemented by municipalities to reduce vehicle traffic by promoting other forms of transportation – into the plan to encourage alternative forms of transportation;”

let’s not lose sight that we are a high northern community and what works in other municipalities won’t necessarily work here. i.e. there’s few people that will cycle to work year round.

BTW - took a cab from the airport to Riverdale today… $23.55 for the 11km trip.  That’s obscene. Taxi’s are certainly no viable option to owning your own car up here.

Certainly comprehensive planning needs to be done in regards to parking downtown, but please keep this in mind:
...preserving the vision of a pedestrian-oriented downtown;
In other municipalities where this has been attempted, the downtown core areas died.
..to the evolution of the downtown as a “complete and vibrant city centre”;
You want to keep it vibrant? Provide for employee parking outside the core with stiff penalties for violators, and remove all the parking meters.  Then downtown can better compete with free parking at Wal-Mart & Canadian Tire.
..by promoting other forms of transportation – into the plan to encourage alternative forms of transportation;
This is another way to try and justify the huge expenditures for nearly empty buses running back and forth.  As long as I can afford to drive, and go when and where I want, I will.
..TDM programs can potentially have large impacts, providing significant benefits to the public.”
The big question is, whose definition of “benefits” and what is the hidden agenda?  A car-free downtown?

It’s a shame that we’re having to waste $125,000 to formulate a plan that we’re fully capable of devising with resources, prior studies and input that are readily available.

As a business owner with a large vested interest in downtown parking (we have 4 businesses located on Main Street), I can state with great certainty that our sales have not been negatively impacted by any perceived lack of parking on Main Street. In fact, since the Hougen Centre underwent the dramatic changes they made over the past few years (the second floor and basement are pretty much devoid of retail stores) there is a great deal of parking available right on Main Street between 3rd & 4th Avenues, even during the day. (In fact, the demand for parking is actually shifting towards the waterfront and will continue to do so.)

The group that has the real problem, which should be addressed, are those who work in the downtown core and need all day parking OR an alternative means of transportation (buses) that can deliver them to and from the downtown core on a timely and frequent basis during peak periods. This is the need we identified in the recent Transit Task Force Study and which the Whitehorse Transit Dept has devised a plan to address.

Should we wish to address the problem there are 2 basic choices:

1) Construct a parkade and devise a plan that insures that the City will achieve sufficient buy-in to allow the facility to cover it’s operating costs.

or

2) Adopt the new transit plan and make a commitment to provide the additional $500,000 annual cost and figure out where to come up with the money.

Anyway, it appears we’re going to spend the money for this study. Let’s just hope that in the end we finally make a choice and address the issue in a way that potentially improves the situation for the affected workers.

What a joke! Im tired of paying parking tickets. What is a person supposed to do if they work down town? You cant park at the meters even if you do pay you still get a ticketed. Free parking where? I work at 8:30am and by the time I get down town there is nothing left. So my only choice is tho park at a meter. LOse lose no mater what. This town is a joke!

Thats what we get for electing jokers in our city. Former hairdresser and a bunch of clowns

I agree too, this town is a joke, always has been, always will.

The parking situation for downtown employees is ridiculous. There are two stretches of unlimited parking near my office, I take lunch 15 minutes early to get a stall when I get back and there is nothing because everyone else parks there and walks to main street. I think what we really need is parking designated for downtown businesses only to allow employees to get through the day without a $25 ticket because all they have is 2 hr parking. Even a pay lot would be nice, I’d pay a straight fee to know that I will not have to pay 25 to 50 dollars a day in tickets!

Ever played the slot machines? Well those spinning variables represent BUCKways eyes but its the Jackpot everytime and everyday.

I’m amused at those that like to say this town is a joke. If you don’t like it than you have one of two options…do something about it…or move. At least you have a town to be fortunate enough to live in with good conditions for you and your family unlike places in Haiti right now. The 3rd option to sit and complain from the bench really does nothing except waste your own breath. The clowns that are working for council are at least doing something, even if some of us disagreee, instead of sitting in the peanut gallery wasting their breath too. The parking for employees is hard and I can agree with that. My frusterations are with the workers downtown though who park at meters all day and give people coming downtown to shop no place to park. Without us coming downtown and shopping and investing our money at these places you wouldn’t have to waste time coming down to find a place to park for work cause you wouldn’t have a job. I agree with a multi-level parkade that people can pay for several months at a time like the other City Parkades they have. That could eleviate some of the parking issues from workers taking away spaces from shoppers. I really do like Chris Sorg’s comments too and I would love to hear more perspective from the store owners themselves.

I think my issue with the parking is that many of the businesses on 3rd Avenue, including my place of business, are surrounded by 2 hr parking. Yes there are a few areas that are unlimited parking, but there are not nearly enough for the employees that work in the area. I agree that a parkade (mulit-level or no) would be very beneficial. I would gladly walk 5 blocks from a parkade to the office, at least then I would have the comfort of knowing my vehicle is in a safe area and I won’t have a $25.00 ticket waiting for me at the end of the day. Either that or I would like to be able to apply for a parking permit to park in the 2 hr parking without having to be a company vehicle. That would be just as beneficial.

I never thought when I moved to a community this size 6 years ago that parking would ever be an issue.  I now have adjusted my work day to start an hour earlier than I would really like to, just so that I can get an all day parking spot. Then I’m not having to move my vehicle every 2 hours or duck out of meetings just to move my car so I don’t get a ticket. There is absolutely no consideration from employers or the city for people who work in or around downtown.  I would gladly pay for a parking spot that allowed me to plug in during the winter. 

Transit only works for people who go straight to work and straight home.  If you have to pick up the kids from daycare or do any errands you’re waiting another 1/2 hour plus to catch another bus - total waste of time in an already busy day . . . .