Victoria City Council continues to grapple with how to free up parking spots in the downtown core for shoppers and visitors. Councillors are being asked to increase rates by $1.50 a day at city parkades for all-day parkers to encourage them to park elsewhere.
Mayor Lisa Helps says she's seen private surface lots on Cook and Balmoral outside the downtown core for monthy parkers - so there are options.
But even though parking lots are full and generating revenue for the city, Helps remains adamant that no new city parkade will be built downtown, or on the city's dime.
However -- Helps says there is talk of a public-private partnership on city-owned land at Royal Athletic Park:
" I don't support a parkade downtown. We've got enough parkades downtown, and it's not the best and highest land use. But the city already owns a parking lot at Royal Athletic park. And through some public-private partnership there maybe an opportunity to put underground parking there, an underground parkade and something else on top. But that's a longer term strategy."
Helps says the city is launching a study aimed at determining the city's future mobility needs, and one thing it will do is predict the number of needed parking spots down the road. The mayor suspects once bus lanes make transit more attractive to the West Shore, and a bike network is complete, more parkades will not be necessary.