More parkades needed

Making commuters pay more for all-day parking in downtown Victoria parkades might free up more space for shoppers in the short term, but it’s more likely that most drivers will simply grit their teeth and pay the higher cost.

It’s a problem of supply and demand — Victoria needs more parkades.

In September 2014, city council set out to alleviate parking issues that were plaguing the downtown core. Council decided to lure motorists into the parkades with lower rates, a free first hour and better security.

It worked. Use of parkades increased to the point where they were regularly full between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. on weekdays, and more on-street spaces were freed up for short-term parking, a good development for downtown retailers.

Since then, the demand for parking has increased as the supply has diminished — so many parking spaces have been lost to development and bike lanes even as traffic to the downtown increases. The city’s answer is to raise longterm rates in parkades.

The city hopes to entice more people to use buses and bikes, rather than cars. But cars are a fact of downtown life, and will continue to be as the West Shore and other areas in the region expand. Make it too difficult to come downtown, and more people will look to online shopping as a solution.

Victoria should build a couple more parkades, not drab concrete monoliths, but attractive, multi-use facilities that fit with the city’s effort to make the downtown more welcoming to cyclists, pedestrians and mass transit.