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Parking is always an issue. (Photo contributed)
By Andrew Bates (Phoenix Features Editor)
As the weather gets colder, the heated excitement that existed around the parking system earlier in the year has seemed to fade to acceptance with no small element of confusion. When am I going to be called on the waiting list? When will new spots open? Will they tow my car if I park on the public roads?
Quietly, the new parking lot on Lot J has opened. Loudly, large No Parking signs have been erected around campus. If you’re a student who secured a spot, congrats; if you still don’t have a parking ticket, look no further.
Lot J: here to save us
Lot J, announced by Deputy Vice-Chancellor Doug Owram at the height of the parking crisis, has now been completed, but according to Parking and Security Manager Garry Appleton, the lot is not yet full. “We have the new J lots finished,” Appleton told the Phoenix. “237 stalls there, and we’ve sold 180 of them, so there’s about 65 or 70 left that have not been spoken for.” According to Appleton, promotion for these new sites were done on the university website.
The parking waiting lists, which caused much difficulty earlier in the year, are now almost empty. They were cleared at the beginning of November, but the reason why they are low now, according to Appleton, is due to dual entries. “Because of the administration of the system,” he said, “a person could be on there five or six times, so when you sell one pass, you get rid of about five or six names on the list.”
However, regardless of the spot availability, there are still cars lining Hollywood Road North and John Hindel Way along the side of the campus. The new question on campus remains: will that change?
Towed out or snowed out
People started parking on the access roads themselves early in the year, and the Phoenix reported in September that those roads belong to the city. The actual city position on those roads has been quiet; a global UBC e-mail warned that “vehicles parked in contravention of B.C.’s Motor Vehicle Act may be issued a violation ticket from the City of Kelowna,” although the e-mail did not explain what that might involve.
The city, as well, has put up No Parking signs in some areas of John Hindel Way, leading some people to question why the areas became no-parking zones. According to city clerk Stephen Fleming, the city’s only interest is to ensure the area is safe. “What we want to make sure is that the parking doesn’t create any safety issues for any other drivers, cyclists, or pedestrians,” Fleming told the Phoenix, “and that the people who park their cars also don’t park their cars somewhere where they end up getting stuck themselves. That’s sort of what the issues are on John Hindel Way.”
The no-parking signs on that road exist for a few reasons, according to Fleming. “It’s to make sure that people don’t park blocking bike lanes. We also had issues around people parking and blocking driveways and entrances to the private school that was up that way,” he said. “[Also] because of the grade of John Hindel, to make sure that it can be properly plowed now that it’s going to be wintertime.” According to Garry Appleton, a small five-place parking lot up the road is still fair game, although the small gravel area near the foot of the road where people have been parking is private property and up to the lot’s owner. “If he’s allowing people to park there, that’s his business, not ours or the city’s,” he said.
Hollywood Road, though, is apparently still under regular restrictions. According to Fleming, notwithstanding other signs, there are a regular set of rules that apply to public roads. “Generally, unless it’s otherwise posted, you can park on a city street once in a 24-hour period if it’s not blocking a safety/sight line issue or a fire hydrant or a bike lane or all of these other things,” he said. Overnight parking is allowed, with the caveat that you are only allowed to park in the same location once in 24-hour period.
However, Fleming warned that the lots may not be very good to park in come winter snowfall. “The gravel lots, basically, if you park there, they’re not meant to be a parking lot,” Fleming told the Phoenix. “I think they pile snow there once the snow starts to fall, and I think some of the ground there is a little soft. If you park there, you park at your own peril.”
Park to the future
The thread uniting everyone in this case is an attempt to alleviate further pressure in parking. According to Stephen Fleming, the city continues to work on parking. “I talked to Jerry Trabowski, who’s the staff person looking into that, and he’s looking if there’s any city-owned lots that are close enough to a bus route that could be used for such a purpose,” he told the Phoenix. “he’s still exploring the different possibilities. He’s looking into it, can’t commit right now as to whether he’ll find the lot we own that’s big enough and close enough to a bus stop, but that is being looked at.”
Garry Appleton was skeptical of the possibility of those efforts to yield results, however. “We have been asking them… for park and ride for the whole two years,” he said. “The city still does not have a solution. That’s been on the agenda every single meeting.”
Parkades have been discussed, according to Appleton. “Parkades again are a fiscally responsible solution for multiple uses, to use the land better. We’re doing business cases on it all the time, doing evaluations on it all the time, and the cost of doing such,” he told the Phoenix. The issue, however, comes right down to cost.
“The problem is the sheer cost of it. To build a parkade here would be about 10 million dollars to put a 500-car parkade,” Appleton said. “You finance that over 25 years, that means that each stall in there has to be rented out for $80 a month, 12 months a year… just to pay the loan off.”
Parking receives no subsidy from the university, Appleton claimed, and is paid for completely through the parking passes and collected parking fees.
The plan they’re looking at to improve the stressful situation at the beginning of the year is to implement an online system for selling passes.
“What we’re trying to do is trying to secure a parking program that will be totally online,” said Appleton. “You’ll be able to pay online, do everything on line, just like you do with your tuition, everything’s paid for, so that’ll be a totally online service.”
Hopefully, that will relieve the pressures that made Parking such an issue this year, but it is unlikely that this will be the last movie in this series.
Tags: parking issues
