A parking survey in Nelson received roughly 900 responses. It was great to receive so much feedback says City Planner Alex Thumm who adds it provided a lot of helpful information. Overall, 24 per cent of respondents said that parking is overall adequate in the downtown. 23 per cent said that they think nothing is working well.
One thing the City heard from respondents was the need to reduce traffic coming into downtown. Finding more locations for commuter parking could be one of the ways to do that.
“Either something that you can walk to or that there’s a regular shuttle to or a park and ride system,” explains Thumm. “But people really acknowledging that we don’t have the room downtown for everyone. Visitors and shoppers and people going to restaurants and employees; everyone to be parking downtown.”
The City announced today that the Curling Club parking lot will be available for all day commuter parking at a rate of $5 per day.
It’s important that the City look at the bigger picture and consider options like better transit as well, says Thumm, but there are some short term ideas that could help. Of the 11 per cent who indicated that they live in a residential parking permit area, 49 per cent do not agree with the current policy.
“Lot of residents who live on the downtown streets like Silica, Carbonate, Victoria and the downtown residential area have, not surprisingly, a lot of complaints about parking. They don’t have room, they’re not able to have off street parking especially in the winter when they can’t fully access the lane, and there’s commuters parking all over their streets.”
The signage on residential streets and parking permit system is a big one that the City can look at in the near future, Thumm says. The City may also choose to look at its policy for parkade passes.
“You can park their all day, it should be commuter parking, you’ll just be paying, kind of, a pay as you go system, which also has the advantage of recognizing that not everyone, even if they work five days a week, not everyone necessarily drives five days a week.”
80 per cent of respondents said that they don’t use the parkade. There is currently a waiting list for monthly permits, however day-rate stalls at $5 per day are available on a first-come-first-serve basis.