BANFF – An increase in visitor paid parking is coming to Banff.
Town council approved a jump in summer paid parking rate from $6 to $7 an hour for on-peak periods starting May 1, 2025, at its Monday (Nov. 25) meeting. The off-peak period between Oct. 1, 2024, and April 31, will remain at $5 and residents will continue to receive three free hours of parking per day.
“Council has given direction to put in programs to help make our very finite road system work better, with the bulk of it going to transit. The reality is that comes with a cost and I think it’s been a very sustainable revenue system with visitor paid parking and I think it’s a good use of these funds,” said Mayor Corrie DiManno, adding she would be interested to see if the increase in cost assists with parking stall turnover.
For every $1 increase in parking rates, additional revenue generated is approximately $725,000 for the peak rate period and $488,000 for the off-peak rate period.
DiManno noted the anticipated $725,000 will help with already approved programming such as e-bike rebates, Bear Street snow removal, sidewalk maintenance, Mountain Avenue bus lane impacts and continuing mode shift goals in the townsite.
“One thing we’ve heard from the community in the last year is their irritation with traffic congestion and the more we can do to enhance and strengthen our sustainable transportation network will make it a more enjoyable experience for visitors … and lives better for those who need to drive,” she said.
Coun. Grant Canning added he felt at a certain point an increase would hit a ceiling, but that they weren’t at the level with traffic congestion and high visitor demand in Banff continuing to grow.
“At some point, we’re going to get some concern and obviously, we’ll have to address those concerns at that time,” he said.
Steve Allan, the Town’s engineering coordinator, said municipal staff have speculated at what point would paid parking become too expensive for visitors to drive to Banff, but a number has never been generated.
“We’re not actually seeing a huge amount of change in that, so the recommendation of another incremental change is around soft small changes to see the effect. You could definitely whack it up to $15 and see a dramatic effect, but that hasn’t been council’s philosophy. It’s been slow small changes and see what the effects are, so the recommendation is around parking behaviour change rather than the revenue.”
Allan noted rate changes have had a “pretty fairly minimal effect on parking behaviour.”
Coun. Hugh Pettigrew, the lone councillor who voted against the increase, said he had concerns about the risks and unintended consequences. He said he felt it could burden residents and businesses, putting a “strain on community trust.”
Visitor paid parking has seen significant increases with it going from $2 to $3 in 2021 to the $5 off-peak and $6 summer rate. The increases come as a strategy to discourage people from driving in the townsite during peak summer tourism season.
Visitor paid parking and the residential parking permit systems were introduced in summer 2021 to encourage drivers to park at the train station intercept lot, use transit, walk, and cycle as alternatives to getting around Banff in personal cars.
The idea behind paid parking is to help increase stall turn-over and as a result, the availability of short-term parking stalls in the downtown core, which in turn aims to reduce congestion caused by vehicles circling to find parking.
Annual revenue collected from paid parking was $4.3 million in 2023 and revenue so far this year is about $5.4 million. The revenue is used to enhance transit and other initiatives for promoting active modes.
The current rates are still lower than those in the Calgary downtown of $10-12 an hour, Banff’s Cascade Plaza of $7/hour, and the Banff Springs Hotel of $35 per night.
Rates are comparable with Niagara-on-the-Lake at $5.50/hour, and higher than other communities like Canmore at $4/hour, Jasper $4.50/hour, Whistler $2.50/hour, and Sylvan Lake at $3/hour.
The report stated Banff Avenue Bridge volume dropped 18 per cent in 2024 compared to 2019, while Mountain Avenue volume also dipped 19 per cent from 2024 to 2019. In the same time span, local and regional transit ridership increased 45 per cent.
It indicated the average paid parking time dropped from 121 minutes in 2022 to 118 minutes in 2023, but mainly stayed the same in 2024 at 118.5 minutes.
“I can’t wait for the day when we have convenient, frequent, mass transit from Calgary to Banff and all we have to do is tell people how to get here on bus or rail,” DiManno said. “That is the dream, but until then we’re in this nightmare.”
Bear Street parkade changes
A motion from Coun. Kaylee Ram will have the first two floors of Bear Street parkade be paid between May 1 and Oct. 30 and the top two will be free for nine hours.
From Jan. 1 to April 30, 2025, only the main floor will be paid and the remaining three floors would allow for nine hours of free parking.
“We know that the parkade is not as utilized over the off-season … to bring it back to where it was prior to where I’d like to see,” she said.
Town staff recommended the change after data analysis indicated that stalls switched to paid parking earlier this year were not well used in May. It also shows they continue to be under-utilized as winter approaches.
Council approved the bottom two floors of the parkade be added to the visitor paid parking program to increase paid spots from 18 to 118.
Kelly Gibson, Banff’s town manager, said each stall in the off-season has an average income of about $2,825 but the parkade is often considerably lower due to it being an underutilized area in the off-season.
Town staff recommended against Bow Avenue’s free 96 stalls going to paid parking. If council had opted to go with paid parking, it was estimated Bow Avenue could generate about $657,000 in new revenue.
Allan’s report said a consideration for council is the 10-year capital plan calls for design in 2025-26 for the redevelopment of Bow Avenue, with options that include removing most or potentially all of the existing stalls.
A motion to have municipal staff investigate a commuter parking pass with potential rates, criteria to qualify, parking locations, identify potential challenges and other aspects was defeated with only Pettigrew in support.