Parking rates and hours to increase
 

http://www.news1130.com/more.jsp?con...02_094754_5120

Downtown parking will cost $6 an hour

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - The City of Vancouver's budget woes could mean it will cost you more to plug the meter while parking on the street. We're acting as meter maid this morning, breaking the news to drivers.

The reaction is not so pretty among people in the downtown core about raising the rates to six dollars per hour and extending the hours until 10:00 p.m. This man tells us he already tries to avoid parking downtown, if he can help it, and will opt for transit, "I did that last week and saved quite a bit of money. I mean, are we any less or more expensive than other cities?"

Charles Gauthier with the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association and he actually likes the proposals, "It's a commodity and it needs to be priced accordingly and we'd much rather see user fees than an increase in property taxes." He doesn't think the rates will keep people from downtown. Street parking is supposed to be short term, with plenty of other parking and transit options. The proposed hikes would cover the $1.8 million lost during the Olympics due to parking restrictions.



feel free to fail me if you agree this is total BS, up till 10pm are u fucken kidding me?
'


looks like its either this or increased property tax

man as if it aint expensivve enough

Oh well. Bring an extra friend to help chip in for parking.

u gotta be fukn kidding me, its like they're leading a path of destruction with housing/parking/transit prices skyrocketing the area is going to end up like Chicago

*waits for impactx to post*

"alright, so who of you voted for gregor?"

a person making minimum wage can barely afford to park there for one hour
lol


this is sad
:(

Extend the parking meters until 10:00PM? Bull!!

Although they still can't beat Shaw Tower for $6 for half an hr.

park at oakridge and canada line to DT FTW!

right now its what? 8pm i think?

Just means I'll go downtown even less, and when I do I'll use my bike even more.

I have found a great trick for free parking downtown:
Some lots have numbered spots and "no display" paid tickets. So as long as you pay for the space, you don't need a ticket....

Think about this: For places like ScotiaTheatre where the parking underneath is $7 for all-night. People see the first movie, pay for parking, then leave. If you take their spot, its paid for the entire night. Just wait for someone to leave, or park on the top level where there's usually more turnover.

Same applies to Costco. There's so much turnover in that lot, and most pay for 2 hrs, that you can park anywhere and never get a ticket.

If you know of other lots like this, please post them.

They should increase property taxes. If you want to live in the most busiest part of the city, you should pay for it.

This won't happen. There's still many old-school owners in the nicer areas of town, who's houses have tripled in value, and they cannot afford the property tax increase. Those old-school owners actually vote in elections, unlike the young yuppies in BMW driving downtown, so politicians will tax voters accordingly. If you don't like it, vote.

With meter parking possibly going up, my natural inclination is to ask, are these rates similar to other major cities?

For Toronto, I found that The Toronto Parking Authority is a local Board of the City of Toronto which owns and operates the system of Municipal off-street parking lots (‘Green P’) and the on-street metered parking.

The rates are:
Metered spaces are either $1.00, $1.50, $2.00 or $3.50 per hour depending on the area of the City in which they are located. Rates are posted on the machine or meter.

So $6 seems a little excessive to me. For the minimum wage earners or front line staff, this would be terrible.

Like Taylor posted, you gotta find loopholes or drive less in downtown.

+1

I think it's getting a little ridiculous if someone making min wage can barely afford to even park in downtown...

Glad I don't ever go downtown. I avoid that place like H1N1. If I have to go down then I'm carpooling or taking transit. $6 for 1 hour and until 10pm now. Such a fuckin rip off...

6 DOLLARS A FUCKING HOUR!??!!?

WTTTTTTTTTTTTTF

a fucking meter makes more money than me.

werd thx god i got a free parking space in my building

but still, still 3-4 blocks away from the main robson

Well if you can't afford to live there, sell. Look on the bright side, you can now sell for triple what you bought and can finally buy yourself a nice property in good old quiet Langley or Abbotsford :haha:

Another "loophole":

If it costs $6/hr to park downtown then how many hours of parking is equal to one ticket:

Expired meter: $35 or 6 hrs
Permit only: $50 or 8 hrs

Do you think you can get away with parking at meters and not paying for 6 hours?
Do you think you can get away with parking for 8 hours in an permit only location?
Maybe not 6 or 8 hours in a row, yet an hour here, and hour there, probably, and it all adds up.

Consider that not everywhere is very well patrolled by parking enforcement. The Vancouver Sun has an excellent map showing the most ticketed locations:
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/mos...ted-areas.html

Lets look at permit parking tickets at Robson/Denman: There were 766 over 4 years. That's 4/week. You could probably park here for several hours and not get a ticket.

Lets say you want to eat at Hons on Robson. Look at expired meters at Robson and Jervis. There were 2052 over 4 years, or about 8/week, or 1 a day. You could probably park here for a few hours and not get a ticket.

As long as you avoid the areas with the biggest circles, you could probably never pay and they few tickets you will get, will be easily paid with the savings from never paying for parking.

Who wants to live out there? Gross.

Thank-god for condo parking spots downtown, that and my work covers my monthly parking ($320/month) at a pretty central dt location.

http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/l...shColumbiaHome

I know a few people who don't live dt, but changed their addresses on their license and a couple bills to friend's or work addresses located dt so that they could get a residential parking permit dt for $65/year.

Warning tho, if you get pulled over or into an accident, you might run into issues with police and/or ICBC for having an improper residential address on your license.

they work an hour to park for an hour lol

That's too big a risk.

My friend bought a permit for his car for the street. He moves his car to the street and allows me to park underground when I visit. Otherwise his friends rarely visit cause its so hard to find parking near Denman.

Not as convenient, yet not as risky.