Nothing’s free in life, except parking in the City of Victoria for two Saturdays in November.
Drivers can park for free Nov. 16 and 23 at the Johnson Street, Bay Centre, Centennial Square, Sussex Building, Broughton Street, Harbour Centre, Yates Street, Broughton Square, and View Street parkades, as the Downtown Victoria Business Association, Robbins Parking and the Bay Centre cover the costs.
“As we head into the holiday season – and of course that includes the Black Friday weekend – we really want to encourage Greater Victorians to continue to do a great job supporting local,” said DVBA CEO Jeff Bray. “We’re just providing an additional reason to spend a day shopping in one of the best midsized downtowns in North America.”
It's an initiative the DVBA and Robbins started last winter in a bid to remind shoppers to come downtown.
“There’s an idea of, ‘If I can’t park in front of the store I want to go to then parking isn’t very good.’ But when you go to a mall you don’t park in front of the store,” Bray said. “Certainly when you go to Costco you do an awful lot of walking.”
Facing an active narrative around parking – rarely positive – in downtown, the DVBA plans to maintain that conversation heading into the busy winter shopping season.
“People may be surprised to know there are over 7,000 parking spots in the downtown core, between city parkades, Robbins, lots and on-street parking,” Bray said.
Given that amount of parking, Bray argues visitors are never more than a couple blocks from their destination.
“We have a mall in downtown. We are a mall. And you can always find parking no farther away from your destination than you would if you went to one of the big suburban malls,” Bray said.
City parkades have an average stall availability of five to 20 per cent, according to the city. Victoria also launched a real-time parking page at victoria.ca/findparkadespaces last winter to help drivers plan ahead.
“As you’re heading downtown you can see which parkade has parking and just head straight there,” Bray said.
He notes that visitors named Victoria the best small city in the world for the second consecutive year in 2024, through the Conde Nast Traveler readers choice awards.
“I invite people to come experience that for themselves. And we’ll pay for the parking.”
As usual, street parking remains free after 8 p.m. with parkades free on Sundays and holidays.
