Pay Parking

The biggest failure of the user pay parking policy has been our inability to explain what successful pay parking is.

On the heels of Councillor Milner’s Notice of Motion from the Council Meeting on Tuesday May 17, 2011 I thought it would be appropriate to articulate my position on pay parking. This has been the longest most painful and most embarrassing policy decision I’ve been part of in my five years as a Municipal Councillor.

It has been nothing less than disastrous. From inception to communication to execution, it has been just plain awful however, its completion although very distant does not have to be so dismal. Let me begin with how we arrived here…

History- how did we end up here?

Originally the Day Skier Parking Lots were owned by the Province, and used by Whistler/Blackcomb (W/B) guests and Whistler Village visitors. Apparently in the late 1980’s and again in 1997 – the Province offered (threatened) to initiate user pay parking, however I have never been privy to any written documents that stated that. It was however –in my opinion- one of the prime motivators for the RMOW to acquire the day lots; the reason being that the Province would pave the lots (or not) and charge people to park in them, and keep all the associated revenue and the RMOW would have no control –or revenue- from the day lots.

In April of 2008, an agreement was authorized by the Resort Municipality of Whistler Council (RMOW). The agreement had three basic parts: One, the RMOW acquired the land; two, the RMOW had to enter into a management agreement with W/B. –it was a staff recommendation that called for the creation of a committee comprised of two representatives from the RMOW and W/B; third, the Municipality had to pave the lots in order for VANOC to use them as a staging area for the 2010 Olympics and fourth the RMOW had to construct a debris barrier on Fitzsimons Creek, which had until then been the responsibility of the province.

In July of 2008 the agreement was made public, and in August of 2008 council awarded the tender for the Fitzsimmons Creek Debris Barrier and the Day Skier Parking Lot Upgrade. I opposed both of those tender awards because after consultation with the public, I no longer felt that the deal to acquire the day lots was one that would benefit the community. I recall one constituent saying “you are going to use my money to pave the parking lot then charge me to park there?” That conversation helped change my mind. As an aside, in my time as a councilor I would often be asked the question by local residents: “why don’t you pave the parking lots?” my reply was always that we don’t own them, the province does. I mention that it was always local residents that brought the issue up, because I cannot recall ever being asked about it by our guests, and I do not recall ever seeing any supporting evidence that guests were complaining about the unpaved “free” lots.

As for the assertion that there is no such thing as “free” parking I agree but only to a point- what we had prior to the implementation of user pay parking was as close to free as you can get- the province owned the lots, the RMOW and W/B were responsible for the maintenance of them; the costs, while not negligible, were certainly far less than the $11M we spent to acquire them.

You can’t Suck and Blow- the inconsistencies in the user pay parking policy

The Objectives of user pay parking were three fold; the first objective was to change behaviour- to reduce single occupancy vehicle trips and greenhouse emissions, user pay will indeed do this, as local traffic is diverted by making the lower cost bus a more attractive option. This objective however does not consider that the resort is dependent on visitor traffic from the region, and we have no mass transit system to support the demand and thus no option to driving. Objective number one is also contrary to objective two which is to increase revenue from the day lots, if the revenue projections are based on the same amount of people parking in the day lots every day, then you will not have achieved your objective of “getting people out of their cars and onto the bus”. Finally, the third objective which was to improve the Visitor Experience with paved lots, safe stairs to paths, improved lighting and premium spaces for visitors, has achieved this- to a degree- Yes, we needed to face the reality that we are a resort and that we need to look after our guests, prior to the user pay system parking was a great example of poor customer service that looked like this: Local skier/employee leaves home at 7:50 am and drives to lot one and walks the to the lifts, meanwhile our guest leaves the lower mainland between 5:30 and 6:00am drives all the way to Whistler arrives between 8:30 and 9:00am and has to walk from lot four to the lift. No sane person would argue that that is providing anything like good customer service. That said the unintended consequences of user pay parking is that the traffic patterns in the village have changed dramatically, as users take advantage of the free parking underground and at the timing flats in Whistler Creek, and skier lots on Blackcomb. The effect on village business, based on my conversations with business owners and my own observations has been very negative. It used to take me 45 minutes to walk from the gondola to Marketplace because I like to stop and chat with friends I see, but now it takes me about 15 minutes because I don’t see them in the village anymore.

Current Reality

The Current reality is that the User Pay Model is not working, none of the aforementioned objectives are being met, and there is almost no public support for the policy and in fact a vitriolic opposition to it. Most importantly revenues are about half of what were anticipated. The revenue shortfall is partly explained by council’s decision to pave lot four- a decision I opposed- which was never part of the original plan and undermined the attractiveness of the pay lots.

Despite plenty of public consultation- yes there were numerous opportunities including all the tweets chair lift rides and chance encounters with Ralph where you voiced your opinion- there has been little in the way of ideas as to how to rectify the situation. On March 10, 2011, at the recommendation of the Whistler Chamber of Commerce (WCC), the Parking Lot Operations Committee decided to delay communication of the revised User-Pay Parking strategy so that input from the business community could be collected and considered. Of the 798 WCC members 114 completed the survey and the on May 18, 2010 The WCC issued a Statement on User Pay Parking to the Parking Operating Committee, saying that it “could not offer it’s unqualified support for the concept of user pay parking in day lots 1-5″ The Transportation Advisory Group which comprises members from Tourism Whistler, WCC, Whistler Blackcomb and Members-at-Large did endorse the proposed day lot changes and even suggested higher rates and shorter time spans.

Moving Forward

I understand and why people are frustrated- this was a deal they would not have done if it had been offered to them- why buy an $11M parking lot when the one we were using was fine. That said there still remains the outstanding $11M that we owe to our capital reserves. It’s like an RMOW Piggy Bank, whether we like it or not the money is spent and needs to be repaid. I know there is a growing sentiment in the community as well, that we should just fire half the RMOW Staff and pay the remaining half, half as much, and that we should just cut all the other spending to make up the $11M but that is both naïve and facile. I do agree that we need to spend less of your tax money- I’ve opposed every budget since 2008– but we need to be a little more strategic in balancing our costs and revenues. As a fiscal conservative I generally support the concept of user pay for municipal services as it’s a policy that ensures that those who use the service are the ones paying, not taxpayers subsidizing costs.

Here’s what I propose to fix the situation: First, we could amortise the $11M that must be repaid to the capital reserve budget over a 40 year term, the lifespan of the debris barrier is about 40-60 years so it will not have to be replaced any time soon, but the paving would have only a 10-15 year lifespan, so it needs to be budgeted for. Next introduce variable rate and location parking fees during events i.e. when there is a big concert at Olympic Plaza charge in all lots with a premium in lot four when there is a big event at the mountain charge the premium in lots one and two and three. Charge for Parking where you want to actually change behaviour, our public beaches are a prime example of this; the parking lots there are over capacity in the summer months- people expect to pay for parking at parks and beaches- and all of our parks and beaches are easily accessible via the valley trail. And finally increase the Class 6 business tax (A 1% increase to Class 6 business tax is equal to $8.81 per $100,000 assessed value) When surveyed WCC Members responded hypothetically that if the revenues needed were generated through an increase in business property taxes only, then hypothetically what increase in taxes, if any, would businesses be prepared to absorb. 45% -unsurprisingly- said 0% but around 36% responded that something between 1- 3% (30%) 4-6% (9.7%) and 7-9% (7.5%) would be acceptable. Bear in mind that the question was; if we had to cover the costs ONLY with a class 6 tax increase. It is clearly not the only answer, like most solutions to complex problems many contributions should be considered. Anecdotally I have spoken to several business owners that were amenable to this scenario.

These are just a few ideas – I have heard literally hundreds of others- on how we can fix this problem. If we can engage the right people in the discussion I’m sure we can sort it all out. First and foremost though we need to articulate what successful parking looks like, in my opinion it is a full parking lot (but not so full that you can’t get a spot) successful parking also ensures that the best spots are used by our highest yield visitors. If we lock a group of smart people in a room with the objective of creating a parking policy that is reflective of this, while still contributing the necessary revenue then I’m certain that we’ll find a solution