513 replies to this topic

[VicHockeyFan]

Or Goldstream where transit options are zero.

[G-Man]

Parking is free at Thetis I thought. Don't think I paid last time I was there.

[VicHockeyFan]

Parking is free at Thetis I thought. Don't think I paid last time I was there.

 

Pay parking at Sooke Potholes and Thetis Lake Regional Parks is in effect for the summer season from May 1 to September 30. The cost of parking is $2.25 per day, or $20 for a season's pass. Revenue collected from parking fees helps to offset the costs of park services for visitors.

 

 

https://www.crd.bc.c...es/parking-fees

[Mike K.]

Transit services outside of the downtown core are brutal and it will take an entire generation of massive funding and infrastructure development to change that. There’s no will for that now, so nothing will begin to change in the near future, let alone over the next few years.

Honestly, you might as well not even have transit services across much of the West Shore the services are so bad.

[tjv]

fair enough, I don't take transit primarily because its brutal anywhere.  Just look at the transit service if I want to go the airport, a quick check of google maps transit confirms its either multiple buses or a 17 min walk and a bus from downtown this morning, but I guess that entitles me to free parking too?

 

Even from my house to downtown, a 45 min bus ride & walk or a 20 min car ride at rush hour.  Hooray, free parking downtown too for me!

 

But seriously does brutal transit entitle people to free parking, but then the airport should be free

[Mike K.]

Parking is also free in downtown Victoria for the first hour. Extrapolated to the volume of users, the City of Victoria provides significantly more free parking on a daily basis than does that school.

[tjv]

true if you look at it a certain way and if you can find a parking stall in a parkade.  I remember recently going to 3 parkades and they were all full, so I simply left downtown and went elsewhere

 

how many parking stalls are there downtown vs the amount of free parking given away.  CoV still collects $25+ million in parking revenue per year?

[Mike K.]

Thousands of people receive free parking every single day in Victoria in parkades and then after 6PM. The numbers are staggering when compared to the school.

Tens of thousands of individuals in Saanich, Central Saanich and North Saanich also receive free parking on public streets, as do residents of Victoria. Free parking is literally everywhere, and our economy thrives on the individuals who choose to drive and are able to utilize the free parking.

[tjv]

is the CoV, for example, spending millions of taxpayer money for a free public parking lot downtown?  Heck, the CoV has publically stated a new parkade should be built by private developers and not the City.  If Royal Bay employees get a free multi million dollar parking lot to use at their disposal then the CoV employees should also get a free multi million dollar lot too.  that's where I am coming from.  (full disclosure I don't work for the CoV, Royal Bay, or even downtown for that matter, I have nothing to gain by my argument)

 

This parking lot at the school will maybe hold 50 cars as a guess.  There are probably 10,000 parking spots downtown.  I think its an apples to oranges comparison

[TallGuy]

Just to get back to the crux of the matter, the school district is required by municipal bylaw to provide off-street parking. For example, in Colwood (and most other local munis) they must provide enough spots for all full-time staff plus 2. This can be found on page 44 of the City of Colwood's Land Use Bylaw.

https://colwood.civi...t/document/1999

 

Perhaps, instead of pointing figures at wasteful provincial spending, we should be asking our local municipalities why they are forcing our non-profit service providers to build parking lots large enough for every staff member to drive to school. This seems pretty hypocritical when you consider the municipalities' supposed Green initiatives. And I'm sure that the money could be put to better use.

Edited by TallGuy, 09 April 2018 - 09:16 AM.

[laconic]

Employee parking is most often a taxable benefit

 

https://www.canada.c...le/parking.html

 

Camosun College charges students and visitors for parking, even at Interurban which is not the most transit convenient. Employees get a "free" parking sticker if they want one, but it is a taxable benefit on their T4's

 

In general I believe the rule is that if parking for everyone is free then there is no taxable benefit, but if you charge people other than employees, then employees are receiving a taxable benefit.

[Mike K.]

Great points.

 

I'd expand that further by saying that virtually all green initiatives end up being hypocritical or negated.

[Jackerbie]

Not sure why we are spending tax dollars for a parking lot.  Is there any other government authority or private business that buys land for a parking lot for employees?

 

However, if the parking lot is being bought with future expansion I can see that while making use of it as a temporary parking lot for now

 

The parking rates in Colwood's Land Use Bylaw apply, which are 1 space per employee and 1 space per 10 students. Reform of parking rates at the municipal level is an entirely different issue, which Corey and TallGuy alluded to.

 

What's the difference between purchasing a new property for an expansion while leaving the existing parking untouched, and purchasing a new property for relocating parking when a new expansion is built? Either way you're getting an expansion and complying with municipal parking requirements. You're either spending money to relocate the parking so you can use existing School Board land for an expansion, or spending money to buy land for the expansion and having a disjointed school campus. Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Edited by Jackerbie, 09 April 2018 - 09:24 AM.

[Bob Fugger]

Great points.

 

I'd expand that further by saying that virtually all green initiatives end up being hypocritical or negated.

I like how the CoV wags it finger at all people commuting to work in single occupancy vehicles, but then plans infrastructure (changes) around making things easy for their own staff to park for free, either in their own lots or on streets located near CoV employee hubs that happen to be curiously unregulated.  Namely:

 

1. The Public Works Yard on Garbally Road has a massive staff parking lot.  As Victoria has a dearth of light industrial and industrial zoning, we should look at consolidating the yard and selling off surplus land.  Employees can pay for parking, take a bus or ride to work like the rest of us schmoes.  Alternatively, the City can start charging market rates for the parking and making it non-exclusive (i.e., anyone can purchase parking there).
    
2. The Parks Department Yard on Nursery Road (Beacon Hill Park) has its own lot, but it's nowhere near enough capacity for staff.  So they just end up taking up all of the unregulated street parking on Dallas Road, south of Park Boulevard.  What this does - especially in the summer - is push park users to nearby residential streets.  Now, there is an argument to be made that residents do not have exclusive parking rights to their street where it is not zoned Residential Only Parking.  However, in a free parking faceoff between (taxpaying) resident parking and employee parking, sorry, the former wins every time.
   
   You may recall the parking changes that happened on Cook Street in front of the new playground back in 2016 or so.  The City took the length of the west yellow curb from May Street to Leonard Street and turned it into 2 hour parking.  What about the stretch from Leonard Street to Dallas Road?  The City left that unregulated.  A series of emails between the Parks Operations Manager and Transportation chief acknowledged keeping it unreglated so that "long term parkers (including...Parks employees)" would park there instead of on neighbouring residential streets.  Wow.  City management makes parking decisions based on what works best for employees, rather than park users and residents.  And of course, the Parks Ops Manager invokes the Nuremberg Defence for his employees, saying that they and not the City are responsible for how they get to work and that employees are required to park in accordance with City bylaws. - knowing full well that the most convenient parking for Parks staff is totally unregulated by parking bylaws.

Edited by Bob Fugger, 09 April 2018 - 09:36 AM.

[tjv]

Just to get back to the crux of the matter, the school district is required by municipal bylaw to provide off-street parking. For example, in Colwood (and most other local munis) they must provide enough spots for all full-time staff plus 2. This can be found on page 44 of the City of Colwood's Land Use Bylaw.

https://colwood.civi...t/document/1999

 

Perhaps, instead of pointing figures at wasteful provincial spending, we should be asking our local municipalities why they are forcing our non-profit service providers to build parking lots large enough for every staff member to drive to school. This seems pretty hypocritical when you consider the municipalities' supposed Green initiatives. And I'm sure that the money could be put to better use.

ah ok I wasn't aware of that

 

all others also make excellent points as well

[Mike K.]

CoV’s senior staff also receive free guaranteed parking (or as a taxable benefit, I don’t know) as part of their employment contract.

[tjv]

It's a taxable benefit if all you do it park, but if the idea is that you provide parking for employees to have easy access to their vehicles to attend off site meetings, etc then its not taxable because its a benefit to the employer more than the employee

 

It would depend on how those staff use their vehicles

[lehman01]

Work has begun on the far side of the lot directly next to Royal Bay Secondary. Looks to be almost like a road but there's no storm drains (etc.)

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[shoeflack]

A second entrance to this school is desperately needed. Latoria & Ryder Hesjedal Way is just bonkers before and after school. So if that's a road connecting to the new parking lot, that is a definite win for that area. I assume it is based on the existing road infrastructure. They have accounted for an entrance here when they built Latoria as seen below. Though a turn lane going eastbound would be helpful in place of the median.

 

[Mattjvd]

I was mistaken in my last post about the location of the next townhome phase. That's it in the picture above.