15 replies to this topic

[Mike K.]

The mayor thinks reducing the efficiency of parking commissionaires but increasing the cost to park downtown is a good idea. Right now it's $0.25 for every 10 minutes.

Oh, and a study will be launched to tell the mayor whether his idea is a good one.

Too good to be true? Mayor suggests parking enforcers ‘too efficient’
BY LINDSAY KINES Times Colonist staff


Is it possible to be too good at your job?
Victoria Mayor Alan Lowe thinks so, especially when it comes to the hyperefficiency of the city’s meter men and women. Lowe fears the commissionaires’ legendary ability to appear apparition-like beside your vehicle within minutes of a meter expiring, slip a ticket under your windshield wiper, and then vanish into the fog risks driving business away from the downtown core.
“They are only doing their job,” he said. “[But] if they are too efficient, it does deter people from coming downtown … and before you know it, they’ll be going to the malls. Our biggest competitor is always the malls with their sea of parking. Free parking.”
So yesterday the mayor floated the possibility of reducing the number of commissionaires, or at the very least, telling them to ease up a bit.
“There’s two issues that I get a lot of letters and complaints about,” Lowe said in an interview. “One is the homelessness/panhandling situation. The other is the parking situation.”
People routinely accuse the city of having a commissionaire around every corner, waiting for meters to expire, so they can swoop in with a ticket, he said.
“Obviously, we do need commissionaires to keep some sense of order and to ensure that people are not taking advantage of the system. But I guess the question at the end of the day will be: Do we need as many of them?”
Bruce Carter, chief executive officer of the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce, said the number of commissionaires may be less important than the “culture” in which they work. The chamber also hears complaints about commissionaires’ inflexibility, he said.
“It’s pretty clear that the profit model is foremost in the minds of the commissionaires,” Carter said. “I think you could change that model slightly to be a little less focused on profit and a little bit more balance on ensuring the downtown is welcoming.”
Like Lowe, Carter doesn’t blame the commissionaires. “They’ve been sent out, they’ve got a job to do, and the city is responsible for the corporate culture . … It can be shifted and changed, and we as a chamber would encourage that.”
Lowe said the city plans to hire a consultant to help assess its parking strategy and hopes to announce changes early in the new year. Among other things, Victoria may consider extending the “grace period” from the time a meter expires until a ticket appears on your windshield, he said.
“Right now we give a five-minute grace period. Maybe it needs to be longer. Is 10 minutes reasonable? Is 15 minutes reasonable?” He also suggested giving commissionaires more discretion to issue warning tickets for minor infractions, such as parking too far from the curb.
“If it doesn’t cause a serious traffic hazard, maybe they should use some discretion there,” Lowe said.
The mayor admitted that writing fewer tickets will reduce revenue, but said the city could compensate by charging more to park. “I think that people are willing to pay a little bit more for parking as long as they don’t get that ticket,” he said.

[m0nkyman]

< profanity laced rant deleted by me.>

We were there before there were meters in front of our home.....

[jaylow]

i think the commisionaires get a...ummm, commision form all the tickets they give, why else would they care so much about giving tickets?

[aastra]

Our biggest competitor is always the malls with their sea of parking. Free parking.”

Is this really the reason the malls are so strong? Do the businesses in the malls have no drawing power? Does the atmosphere in the malls have no appeal?

Heck, if that's the case then make the city-owned downtown parkades free for the first two hours all the time. Problem solved. The malls would wither and downtown would flourish.

Methinks there's much more to it than that.

[aastra]

“I think that people are willing to pay a little bit more for parking as long as they don’t get that ticket,” he said.

This is hilarious. If people were really willing to pay a bit more then why didn't they just put another quarter into the meter to begin with? Are we suggesting there are still some people out there who don't know that a parking violation will probably produce a ticket?

Victorians have been *****ing about overzealous commissionaires for 25 years or more. Mr. Raeside drew a cartoon back when the Eaton's Centre was under construction that showed commissionaires crying over the temporary removal of the meters around the construction area.

I was born and raised in Victoria and I'd guess I've parked in a parkade at least 20 times for every one time I've used a meter. I suspect the main reason people use meters is not because they're convenient but rather because -- if you don't pay and also don't get caught -- they offer the opportunity to park downtown without paying. Hence why people are so pissed off when they get a ticket.

If, on the other hand, you actually do plug the meter but you're just an awful judge of how much time you need, the solution is obvious: go park in a parkade.

[Holden West]

i think the commisionaires get a...ummm, commision form all the tickets they give, why else would they care so much about giving tickets?

As I understand it, this is an urban legend. There is no commission or quota but their output is monitored and compared to others to ensure they're not slacking off. Many commissionaires are former police or military so they have this rare, crazy, unique committment to following orders and efficiency.

I think Lowe is giving in to the whiner brigade. "How dare I get penalized for parking 30 minutes in a 20 minute zone, Mayor Lowe!!"

I'm going to try this next year on my property taxes and see what happens.

[Mike K.]

I personally use the parkades -- it's $0.25 for half an hour and 50 cents for the first hour! If you have a free hour parking pass, you pay 50 cents for two hours! It's an unbelievable deal.

I think Holden's right. It's the folks who expect free parking or exhorbitant parking allotments for 25 cents who complain about the parking issue. The rest of the public understands that on-street parking is a fact of life in any urban area.

[gumgum]

I wonder how feesable it would be to remove the meters completely? I know it's a way out there idea in some senses, but imagine how great this could be for d/t in some ways. Keep a time limit on street parking and remove the meters.
I don't know. Is it really such a far-fetched idea?

[Holden West]

That would be rewarding people that bring their car into the downtown core--the opposite of what we want--people walking, taking transit, biking or at least, leaving their car in parkades on the fringe of downtown, leaving the core free for essential automobile usage.

[Walter Moar]

Free parking combined with increased population downtown would mean that it would be next to impossible to find a spot. Pay parking keeps people from leaving their vehicles there all day.

[gumgum]

Good point Holden. But is that why meters exist? To discourage car ridership? I thought it was just a tax grab.
Do meters really discourage people that much?
Walter, you can still have limits on parking times without meters.

Not married to the idea. Just thought I should throw the idea out there.

[Walter Moar]

Walter, you can still have limits on parking times without meters.

Oh, duh! In that case, other than the money coming in, I don't see why the meters are needed. To me, they're not preventing people from coming downtown, but they're not making it easy either.

[gumgum]

Well this is what I was thinking.
More vehicle encouragement into the core: bad.
Bigger tax base from businesses making a higher profit: good. Although I guess it would all be going to the province and the feds anyways. Nevermind.
Maybe that's why meters are so popular - it's cash that goes directly into the municipality, rather than the province, and feds.

[gumgum]

But still. A successful retail core is tempting.

[Galvanized]

i think the commisionaires get a...ummm, commision form all the tickets they give, why else would they care so much about giving tickets?

I remember an article a few years ago touching on that. They have a contract with city and were almost outbid and that's when they switched from the Cushman carts to scooters. I had a good laugh when the paper asked if the Commissionaires would have problems with the change and the spokesman said that they were going to use younger less fat Commissionaires! There was an apology in the paper a couple days later. I have to say it was nice for the city to tell them they were going to lose out if they didn't lower their bid, you'd think the other company would have sued the city over that.

[Ms. B. Havin]

There's a "locked" article in the [url=http://www.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/news/capital_van_isl/story.html?id=e106ac4b-3f50-4a39-bfd4-705850dd8bc0&p=1:ac5f0]Comment[/url:ac5f0] section of today's Times-Colonist re. the perceived parking in Victoria problem.

If someone could post it, that would be great. From what I gather, though, it repeats the old shibboleths about how "difficult" it is to find parking in town ("Try a gentle touch with parking rules - It's a bad thing when a city's downtown is known far and wide for the vigilance and ferocity of its parking enforcement.")

I don't get it -- there's never any problem finding parking in the parkades, except on rare occasions. So if Victoria is "known far and wide" for "parking enforcement," who or what or why is spreading the word?

Is it another case of Victoria puffing itself up, by adopting the "evil big city" problem of parking (even though it doesn't have that problem -- try parking in San Fran or Boston sometime: that's an expensive problem and puts Victoria in perspective)? Just so it can then turn around and say, "oh, we don't want to be a big city, because all our problems will get worse"? (Never mind that big cities bring benefits, too... We'll just conveniently forget that...).

Baffling, truly baffling.

PS: I'm not familiar enough w/ forum software, but is there any way to put an index on a forum? I ask because I couldn't remember where this topic was, and took ages finding it. Or should I just use the "search" function (above), if I can remember key words associated with the thread I'm looking for?