Raise parking costs, and people go downtown by other means than cars

A storm of criticism erupted in January 2011 over a large increase in the tax on use of parking garages in Vancouver, British Columbia. The tax went up 35 percent, causing the head of the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association to predict a host of bad effects on downtown, as reported by The Province. 

Protesters made their unhappiness known under the slogan "Drive Out the Tax." But in the end, the transportation body known as TransLink insisted that revenue was needed for transit and road improvements in metropolitan Vancouver.

A year later, some of the results are in. Chief among them: a 9 percent drop in use parking garages run by the city's parking corporation, EasyPark. Private parking companies also saw declines, though not as steep, according to The Globe and Mail. 

"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," The Globe and Mail reported Jan. 6. 

There is evidence that more people are parking near suburban stations and using transit to go downtown. And over period of years, there seems to have been a considerable shift in travel patterns.

The newspaper said that since 1997, when Vancouver capped the number of public downtown parking spaces at 35,000, "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." Bike lanes have been added, making it easier to pedal into and through the downtown. The Canada Line subway has opened, increasing the number of transit routes available.

Jerry Dobrovolny, the city's transportation director, said the aim by the year 2020 is to have less than half the trips downtown take place by car. 

For more in-depth coverage on this topic: 

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• See the October-November 2011 issue of New Urban News (as our print newsletter was known for 15 years). Topics: HUD’s Choice Neighborhoods, Parking reform, transit-oriented parking policy, Obama vs. Congress, West Virginia town revitalizes, suburb remakes its center, ecological dividend, cul-de-sac makeover, thoroughfare manual, and much more.

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• See the September 2011 issue of New Urban News. Topics: Walk Score, sprawl retrofit, livability grants, Katrina Cottages, how to get a transit village built, parking garages, the shrinking Wal-Mart, Complete Streets legislation, an urban capital fund, and much more.