Kudos to Victoria city council for looking into peripheral downtown parking (“City investigates the value of more parking options bordering downtown”, May 30).
Not everyone can use transit or bicycle. But not every journey requires parking adjacent to destinations.
This strategy for Victoria would be akin to how airports (and to an extent, BC Ferries) manage their parking with peripheral less expensive long-term and closer-in more expensive short-term lots. There is higher turnover in the short-term lots, thereby accommodating more vehicles, and people.
Airports often use shuttle buses or in some cases guided people-movers to connect their long-term lots to the terminals. That component would be needed here: with e-shuttle buses or better yet, streetcars or light rail transit (LRT). Rail modes like those are attractive, clean, fast, comfortable, accessible, efficient, and can carry large numbers of people.
Having a streetcar or LRT with peripheral parking confers another critical benefit: the ability to comfortably and safely handle crowds to events in the Inner Harbour.
Interestingly enough, this suggestion was raised nearly 40 years ago by Streetcars for Victoria, later the Greater Victoria Electric Railway Society. It proposed a streetcar line from the-then Hudson’s Bay department store parkade by the arena to the Legislative Precinct.
Since then, many cities have brought back streetcars and LRT. They often have off-wire capabilities, minimizing the use of overhead wires.
Imagine how much easier it would be to get around Victoria today if we had peripheral parking linked with a streetcar.
Brendan Read
Victoria
