Victoria council on Thursday threw its support behind the city looking into ways to create more parking options on the outskirts of downtown as it eyed a less car-centric future for the region’s economic engine.
A motion brought forth by councillors Matt Dell and Dave Thompson tasked staff to study ways of increasing parking capacity on the north end of downtown, in a way that would allow people to park there and then bus, walk or use other modes of travel to enter Victoria’s busiest blocks.
Their motion aimed to reduce traffic congestion and air pollution in the downtown, allow transit to operate more effectively and improve safety for pedestrians and others.
Council eventually decided to take a more fulsome look by expanding the study to the downtown’s entire periphery instead of just the north side. No timeline is set for when the study’s results would be presented as councillors tasked staff – who are already in the midst of a parking modernization review – with not rushing the exploratory effort.
Dell and Thompson’s motion eyed ways of reducing the number of private vehicles moving downtown, envisioning possibilities like park and ride stations at the edge of downtown. Their motion was in part inspired by Victoria last week setting the stage for improving transit downtown by endorsing plans to phase in bus priority lanes along Douglas Street.
As council discussed the motion on Thursday, Dell said the goal is to create a more pedestrianized downtown and to ensure they’re thinking about how Victoria will transform over the next 50 years. Having parking focused on the edge of downtown would hopefully allow for future possibilities like light-rail, rapid transit or bike-share programs to transport people during the last leg of their travels, he said.
Thompson said the city is already making it easier for people to take alternative forms of transportation, noting the RapidBus route along Douglas and protected bike lanes that will soon be installed on a downtown portion of Blanshard Street.
Several councillors mentioned the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre’s parking lot as an ideal place to build a parkade or other parking options, given it’s prominence to that venue and other attractions in the north end of the city.
While one focus was reducing the pollution cars create downtown, Coun. Chris Coleman noted the city’s core will still need to accommodate vehicles that will eventually not emit greenhouse gases.
According to the city’s real-time tracking website, about 900 parking spaces were available across the city’s six downtown parkades at any given time during the workday on Friday.
READ: Douglas Street set to get dedicated 24/7 bus lanes in and out of Victoria