CANMORE – Potential changes to Canmore’s paid parking could soon be coming to the mountain community.
In an update to council last week, Town of Canmore staff said they would be returning at budget deliberations for council to consider a $1 an hour to $2 an hour increase in peak season rates downtown and at Quarry Lake as well as potentially bringing forward new areas to include in the program.
“An increase of fees will continue to help avoid congestion by encouraging turnover, minimizing hunting for spaces and encouraging mode shift in the Town Centre,” said Caitlin Miller, the Town’s manager of protective services. “Re-evaluating the peak season time frame is another consideration that will be put forward during the upcoming budget amendments.
“During off-peak busy times, such as winter break, February and spring break, special events and weekends throughout the year, utilization of parking throughout the Town Centre is reaching capacity and there’s an opportunity to apply peak season pricing to that time frame as well.”
An increase to $10 an hour for Quarry Lake paid parking will also be pitched at budget talks, and if approved, would coincide with the launch of the new Roam public transit route that would connect to the Town to Quarry Lake, Canmore Nordic Centre, and Grassi lakes day use area..
There is potential the paid parking program could also expand to include Riverside Park and the boat launch, but the would be further discussed by council at budget.
According to the Town, paid parking brought in $1.14 million in gross revenue in 2022. This year, by the end of July, paid parking fees reached $1.39 million, with 95 per cent of gross revenue coming from visitors.
In July and August, 2022, there were 100,579 parking purchases – 80 per cent visitors and 20 per cent residents. For the same months this year, there were 123,563 parking purchases, with residents making up 25 per cent and visitors 75 per cent.
A staff report added though a growing number of residents are using the option of free parking downtown, locals used it during the week rather than weekends. The average resident session was 88 minutes and visitors was 114 minutes.
Andy Esarte, the Town’s manager of engineering, said parking lots such as ones by artsPlace and behind Bank of Montreal had high usage while Elevation Place, Fairholme Drive and 7th Avenue were less so.
“The prime areas are generally filling up and then we’ll have the areas surrounding that below utilization targets,” he said. “The average suggests we’re meeting our targets. When we’re looking at prime parking in year-over-year trends it suggests a need to review rates for peak periods.”
The resident parking permit allows locals to park for up to three hours for free in paid parking zones downtown and Quarry Lake. Though some residents raised concerns about spillover into nearby residential areas, the staff report stated it had “not come to fruition other than a few occurrences.”
As of Oct. 3, there were 8,105 residents signed up for the resident parking permit and 13,775 vehicles registered. There are also 267 businesses approved and 1,059 vehicles registered under the business parking permit.
A downtown non-resident employee monthly parking permit will also launch Nov. 1 for $96 a month and run until the end of April.
From July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023, there were 697 warnings issued and the first year of paid parking had 12,516 tickets given. The bulk of them – 79 per cent – were for downtown, with five per cent at Quarry Lake and about 15 per cent in residential parking zones or unrelated to paid parking outside of paid zones.
However, 3,749 were voided as a courtesy such as when a ticket was just left when the driver came back, a successful appeal or a ticket wasn’t paid within 30 days and became a violation ticket.
According to the report, 75 per cent of tickets went to visitors and 25 per cent to residents.
In May, the Downtown Canmore BIA provided recommendations for council to consider in the paid parking program. Among the recommendations were to have free parking Monday to Thursday in off-peak season, reduce paid parking hours, employee passes, Canmore resident permit eligibility changes, grace periods for tickets and allow residents to park without registering.
The staff report highlighted residents have three free hours, non-resident pass coming into existence soon, impacting the discouragement of turnover of parking spots and not supporting mode shift goals. The BIA and Town would look at additional educational aspects for promoting the three free hours of parking each day for residents.
The Integrated Parking Management Plan was approved by council in 2018 to address and manage traffic congestion and parking in the municipality
So far, paid parking has been used to fund fare-free public transit and ultimately aims to reduce vehicle traffic downtown by 30 per cent and have parking available on downtown lots.
While Town staff are not yet able to see if paid parking led to a mode shift, anecdotally there were higher trends of people walking, cycling and taking public transit. In July and August, local transit ridership increased by 254 per cent compared to the same months in 2022.
A long weekend mode shift comparison from 2013, 2015, 2019 and 2023 showed 69.4 per cent of trips were vehicles, 26.1 per cent were pedestrians and 4.4 per cent of trips were cycling in 2023. In 2013, it was 93.7 per cent vehicles, 4.7 per cent walking and 1.6 per cent cyclists.
The weekday mode shift comparison in 2013 saw 96.2 per cent trips done by vehicles, 2.3 per cent by pedestrians and 1.5 by cyclists. In 2023, it saw 80 per cent by vehicles, 15.5 per cent by pedestrians and 4.5 per cent by cyclists.
“It’s not possible to determine the specific parking regulation and pricing has played in supporting mode shift as these strategies are part of a larger suite of efforts, which include increasing transit service, infrastructure improvements and societal trends,” Miller said. “That said, trends in walk, cycle and transit users are positive over the past several years with strong increases correlating with the paid parking program in the Town Centre.”
