Car no longer eligible for free parking pass
Owner of 7-year-old hybrid upset after Kelowna scales back free parking program
The owner of a 2010 Toyota Prius will have to pay for parking again in downtown Kelowna after the city cancelled his free pass.
Gary Brown says the cancellation makes no sense because the free parking program aims to encourage the use of fuel-efficient vehicles, and his Prius still gets good gas mileage.
“I couldn’t believe it when they said I couldn’t renew the pass,” Brown said Tuesday.
Brown mostly uses his Eco-Pass to take elderly people downtown for various shopping trips and medical appointments. He estimates the pass has saved him about $45 a month in parking fees.
City officials say the Eco-Passes were never meant to be renewable, and people who received them were told they would be valid for only one year.
Eco-Passes, which allow for free on-street parking for a maximum of two hours, were first issued in 2005. That first year, 43 such permits were given out.
By early 2016, as the number of hybrid vehicles increased, there were 1,062 Eco-Passes on the city’s books.
“We thought it was time to rein the program in a bit,” parking manager Dave Duncan said, explaining the belief was the Eco-Passes had had the desired effect of helping encourage the purchase of fuel-efficient vehicles.
The Eco-Pass’s one-year validity might not have been understood by some holders who continued to use them long after 12 months had expired. That misunderstanding was compounded by the fact that not all Eco-Passes had an expiry date shown on them.
“No one ever told me my EcoPass had expired,” Brown says.
In May 2016, city council approved a change in policy that clearly set an expiration date of Dec. 31, 2016, for all Eco-Passes then in circulation. So when Brown tried to renew his Eco-Pass this week after being advised to do by a parking attendant, his application was denied.
With the expiration of most longheld Eco-Passes at the end of last year, there are only 84 valid passes currently in circulation. Thirtyfour are for fully electric vehicles, 22 are for plug-in hybrids, and 28 are for traditional hybrids (which run on a combination of gasoline and electricity provided by onboard batteries).
People who purchase a hybrid vehicle can still get an Eco-Pass until June 1, 2018, after which time the passes will only be available to fully electric vehicles or those with a plug.
A Chevrolet Volt costs around $40,000, and a Tesla electric vehicle costs about $100,000.
“If you’ve got that much to spend on an electric car, I don’t think you really need to be saving a few dollars on parking,” Brown said.