PG DBIA Says City’s Parking Meter Plan a Waste of Money
Prince George, BC.- The President of the Downtown Business Improvement Association (DBIA) Rod Holmes says his organization would spend no more than $45 thousand dollars to fix the downtown parking problem.
At their annual meeting this week, downtown merchants said they are opposed to the idea of the City of Prince George spending $1.2 million dollars on new meters when that isn’t the problem.
Those same merchants say they are organizing a petition which will be presented to the City, calling on the City to not proceed with the installation of new meters.
"The biggest issue" says Holmes, "is people not paying their fines for parking infractions . If we stop the practise of people who work in offices in the core from parking on the streets in the downtown all day, the problem is cured."
One downtown businessperson said they had gone to City Hall and had a conversation with the Mayor on how to address the problem but their concerns have fallen on deaf ears. Mayor Green they say is saying that pay parking is coming back to Prince George, period.
Holmes says the DBIA could spare the City the cost "The Downtown Business Association, would eliminate the need for a city expenditure of over 1 million dollars." He says the financing fees alone amount to $250,000 dollars "and we can avoid that cost if the City would listen to our proposal. The City used to take people to court if they didn’t pay their parking fines why not now? That would solve the problem."
Parking meters were removed in 2009 because the meters were being constantly vandalized. That was a pilot project, and Council has voted to bring back pay parking. The City has posted a request for proposals on BC Bid for the supply and installation of pay parking equipment and a license plate recognition system. The RFP calls for the successful proponents to also provide ongoing maintenance and support.
The RFP will close on April 15th with the expectation that the contract will be awarded by June 10th. It is expected the new system will be in place by late summer and fully operational by no later than mid September.
Comments
Deaf ears from our Mayor is typical.
I would be extremly interested in hearing a better sollution than pay parking. I hate pay parking and be rest assured I will not be leaving a dollar in any store downtown.
The mayor listens, but no valid argument or facts have any impact according to my experience and are a complete waste of time and effort. So sad, really.
The mayor does NOT listen to citizens. Period.
Oh I bet taking people to court is cheap!
I’ve heard what the DBIA is proposing and I’m convinced it would work.
They want to use a digital license plate scanner to lower labour costs. It uses GPS to determine if a car has been in an area for too long, it will print the ticket, and even notify the RCMP if the vehicle is one they are looking for.
The system can either be hand held or truck mounted.
Some leeway can be given for cars that aren’t in the downtown very much. For example, some hair appointments take longer than two hours. However, repeat offenders will be ticketed. Those office workers that move their vehicle every two hours would still get caught.
If a car has unpaid tickets, the system would call a tow truck. The car wouldn’t be released until all outstanding tickets and tow charges were paid. No need to go to court then.
The extra revenue stream would come from collecting on unpaid tickets. Administration costs would be cut. Parking would still be free.
My understanding is that the DBIA is offering to administer this for free–no charge to the City. The City would just sit back and collect a monthly revenue stream from the DBIA without incurring any expenses.
The only catch is that the City has to be willing to hear the DBIA out and they have to modify a few bylaws so that towing can happen.
Bring in the boot those with numerous tickets will be forced to pay to get their car out of impound or the boot taken off.
Icicle: “They want to use a digital license plate scanner to lower labour costs. It uses GPS to determine if a car has been in an area for too long, it will print the ticket, and even notify the RCMP if the vehicle is one they are looking for.”
Uh, 6 months of winter and snow covered license plates anyone?
Uh, It’s illegal to have an obscured license plate . That could be another revenue stream.
Lots of things are ‘illegal’, but not enforced.
Maybe the plate scanners can also hand out tickets for broken taillights and cracked windshields while ticketing for covered license plates. You want to keep people out of downtown, that’s one way to do it.
JohnnyBelt,
Snow covered license plates are a problem–no question. But they are a minor problem at worst.
Debate is good. Surely you must agree that the mayor and council should talk to the stakeholders?
“Mayor Green they say is saying that pay parking is coming back to Prince George, period.”
A mayor who copps an attitude …. glad the voters thought that is what this city needed.
Good Morning,
I just want to clarify a couple of pieces of misinformation posted previously. Happy to see the debate, not my place to participate in the debate, but thought that all of you should have the correct information to make your own decisions. I am trying something new here and I’ll see how the post is accepted to determine if I’ll ever post again.
1. “I am sure after they have worked downtownfor a short period of time they will get to know what vehicles are owned by downtown employees and they are just moving around the block to avoid tickets…deal with them!” – BCracer.
Knowing what vehicles are common abusers is one thing; finding and proving them in violation is quite another — remember the burden of proof for the violation lies with the City.
2. “If a car has unpaid tickets, the system would call a tow truck. The car wouldn’t be released until all outstanding tickets and tow charges were paid. No need to go to court then.” — Icicle
No municipality in the province has the authority to tow a vehicle for unpaid tickets alone (this has been determined through the Courts). Depending on the wording of a municipality’s bylaw a vehicle can be towed on a first or subsequent offence but it can only be towed if the vehicle is parked in violation to the bylaw — unpaid tickets does not fit that criteria. Also, the Courts have also determined that municipalities do not have the authority to keep a vehicle impounded (whether the vehicle is actually towed or if a “boot” is installed on the vehicle) until all outstanding parking tickets and the towing charges are paid; this authority exists in Saskatchewan but not in BC (there is a process involved for Sask. local governments but at least they have that tool if they want to use it). BC municipalities can only impound the vehicle until all towing related charges are paid.
I can’t and won’t comment on issues/posts that have policy or political decisions to them as that is the role for Mayor and Council.
I hope you find the post helpful.
I think the DBIA can do better than their proposal.
1. I do not think it is against privacy laws for every single business to provide the DBIA with the license plates of the cars employers and employees drive to work.
2. Require all employers and employees to park off street.
3. If found on street, set a fine which increases with frequency of occurrences. Since readings are time stamped and parking limits are say 2 hours, several violations in the same day are possible. $10, $20, $30, $40, all in the same day. The next day or the next time they start at $50, $60, etc.
We used to tow cars. Whatever happened to that? Anyone who owes more than $100 gets towed.
I would like to hear from any lawyers on here who could chime in to let us know which of these proposals would not stand up in court. Possibly the City has to back this up.
I think the fundamental part of this is that the guilty are penalizing the innocent at the moment. The innocent are the victims. They should not be.
“Depending on the wording of a municipality’s bylaw a vehicle can be towed on a first or subsequent offence but it can only be towed if the vehicle is parked in violation to the bylaw”
Bingo!!!!~
Write the bylaw accordingly. Hit them after the second or third offence with the towing.
As far as only towing charges can be recoverd ….. Good enough for me …. how many people will be saying to themselves … hey, they can’t get me for the ticket …. I’ll gladly pay the towing charges … ;-)
Don’t worry. When parking meters come back there will never be a problem finding parking downtown ever again. Dollars to donuts that 3-5 years from now, another council will pass a bylaw removing all parking meters on a trial basis. And around and around it will go.
Never going to see me downtown again!
Chief Green…..”Don’t confuse me with facts. My mind is made up”.
I agree with the DBIA. We need to make it as easy as possible for people to park and shop downtown.
The DBIA should work with business and employee’s and set up some kind of a system that would pay for part of the employee’s cost of parking downtown, this would go a long way to solve the problem. In addition it doesn’t help the business if an employee is talking up a customers parking space.
Perhaps we could set up some free parking zones in certain areas that people could use to take the pressure of the downtown area. We already have one free parking zone which of course is City Hall. Those bozo’s don’t pay for parking but spend a hell of a lot of time making life miserable for taxpayers.
Screwing taxpayers seems to be the name of the game at City Hall, and it has to stop.
The Mayors attitude of arbitrarily saying that pay parking is coming back PERIOD seems to indicate that the 8 Councilors have no say in the matter. She has made other statements that would also indicate that she is running the show. Has she got some councilors in her pocket that would allow here to make these sorts of statements??? If she can call the shots, then why do we have 8 councilors??
That $1.2 million has to be borrowed. Right? Like it’s not sitting in a vault in the basement at city hall? I’m thinking of ol’ Scrooge McDucks vault.
Is there a hair stylist in town, that could whip up the classic Margaret Thatcher do for mayor Green?
They all should be chased out of city hall!
That will def. kill downtown business.
City Hall has to borrow the money, pay interest on that, pay the money back, pay somebody to look after the meters – so what is all that good for. There will be damages to the meters. Look how many homeless hang around there, using the needle exchange, coffee shops and whatever they have for them. They are used to ask us for a dollar, if we show up downtown. If many customers stay away, they might just try to get some dollars out of the parking meters – and that means, more costs for City Hall.
Find better a solution for all the people, working downtown, that they can park somewhere and that they do not block the parking spots.
The taxes are going up every year, so do the right thing with that money and do not try to rip off even more all these house owners.
What it comes down to, is that downtown parking issues mostly affect downtown businesses. It would make sense that the City would talk to the businesses to make sure that any solution doesn’t kill them.
I understand that that the City wants to make money on this, but they are going about it the wrong way. If they don’t collect on unpaid tickets right now, what will change with a new system?
Should the City consider charging for on-street parking everywhere else in Prince George too? Why just penalize downtown businesses? What about charging for residential areas too? I know it’s crazy, but I think all areas of Prince George should be treated equally…
The City claims the only area that they monitor for parking is the downtown–it’s not true and it not right that all the City costs for monitoring parking only be applied to the downtown.
Sounds like downtown employees taking up on street parking spaces is the problem. I would think downtown business owners would be able to correct this on their own. That is if they want customers. Then again maybe not. If I had a choice of parking in a parkade or not having employment it would be an easy decision
Free parking might have worked if downtown businesses hadn’t shot themselves in the foot. It wasn’t just employees of the retail shops, but also office staff taking up the majority of parking downtown. The DBIA knew about all this and had a chance to fix it, but did nothing.
Andyfreeze:”Never going to see me downtown again!”
Ditto! See you at the giant Target when it is open! Lots of free parking there, no tickets, no towing, no GPS, no ICBC and RCMP reports, no spy cameras and other enforcers…too bad, I do like the Northern but I will make do elsewhere.
Nominated for Quote of the Day:
Chief Green…..”Don’t confuse me with facts. My mind is made up”.
Icicle wrote:
“What it comes down to, is that downtown parking issues mostly affect downtown businesses. It would make sense that the City would talk to the businesses to make sure that any solution doesn’t kill them.”
I agree. In problem solving the first determination is “who owns the problem”. I think it is obvious that the victims are the merchants and businesses, and primarily those merchants who have storefronts. The primary perpetrators are those who are parking for purposes other than the use of services such as stores, personal services such as banking, haircutting, etc. Primarily they are parking to store their care while they are working, mostly an all day event.
It is rather logical that if the problem is to be solved, the City will be required to participate since they can make law, if required, to assist in solving the problem. BUT, the merchants have to be included in determining the solution to make sure that the problem will likely be solved to a significant degree.
Of course, if the City thinks the problem is that they are not getting enough user fees from its citizens, and one of the user fees which can be levied is for on street parking, that is a completely different story.
Since the City is not working with the DBIA to solve the problem, it seems logical to assume that the two parties are not in agreement of what the problem actually is. What are the objectives?
Bow to queen green. Notice lower caps.
the true agenda of our current mayor and the special interest groups that put her in power are becoming clearer. She listens to them but apparently not the average workin stiff. That seems to include many of the downtown business owners who thought she cared about the downtown. I wonder where Mcclaren is on this issue. LOL
the city shouldn’t make money off parking and that’s what they are setting up to do. If the DBIA simply paid the city for the annual loss the city is currently experiencing then it would be a break even proposition and there is no problem. The current system with its modest challenges, such as people having to walk a block to get to the shop they are visiting, could stay in place.
This isn’t a big or important issue to the majority of citizens so why is our current mayor and council thinking about spending over a million of our hard earned tax dollars and adding to the city’s debt!
BTW thanks for Guy for coming on here and trying to explain thinks.
Thanks, Guy, for your post!
I have been critical of City Planning for the last couple of years. The reason for that is that for whatever reason, the City has had a mediocre planning department for some time compared to the way it used to be. I do not understand why that it is, whether the City Manager did not understand the role of a planning department, or whether the planning department itself was not able to articulate its part in operating a city.
Having adequate parking for downtown should be a planning function. If there were medium to high demand retail and other services which are dependent on storefront presence downtown, the amount of parking which can be physically provided by perpendicular/angled on street parking immediately adjacent to the stores is totally inadequate and has to be supplemented by sidestreet and nearby parking lots and garages.
Look at the parking provided for Spruceland as an example. The parking provided there is a rate of about 6 times the spots provided for a similar store frontage along 3rd. So, if the City is planning for a retail/service intensity similar to a Spruceland, one has to rely on more than just adjacent on-street parking.
What are the City and the DBIA doing to make sure that such a capacity exists, other than installing paid parking which is counterproductive to inviting customers.
Take a drive downtown sometimes and find the City parking lots and parkades. Signage is typically very difficult to see. There is no City standard for parking lot signs. Large, bright signs would do a lot to making âfriendlyâ parking lots and parkades readily visible. The City really does not care about its customers â both citizens and visitors.
It won’t be the homeless vandalizing parking meters, matty will take care of that for us.
No HST on parking fees? Cool Hand mattyc maybe?
Oldcoot has nailed it. Employers need to monitor and manage the parking of all of their employees. That seems to be the root of the problem. Got my vote.
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