Parking now free on Main St downtown

[twobits]

I think some of you are missing the point here in regards to resident permit passes the City is imposing on these residents. There is an inalienable right for anyone to park on a public street where parking is permitted and the residents of these blocks to the east of the downtown have dealt with it just fine for decades. They may have had to, as another poster has pointed out, sometimes has to park somewhere else on the street other than in front of their own home at times but there was never a fee to do so in their residential neighbourhood. The important differentiation here is that the City, with it's own notice to the affected residents, cited the need for these paid resident only permits was a result of their own reduction of available parking in the downtown. For lords sake, they created the displacement of parking with their downtown improvements. Would the morally correct thing to do, since they openly admit to creating the problem, not be to provide parking permits for two vehicles per residence free of charge???? Forget even recouping the cost of the permits. They created the problem......they should pay for it!
I would like to see the City try to implement paid resident parking passes on the streets in somewhere like the Redlands or Wiltse neighbourhoods.
I have also yet to see any comments on my question of the counter productiveness of reducing parking in the revitalized downtown when the objective is to increase people visiting. It seems to be a bit of an elephant in the room that no one wants to see.

[XT225]

I think some of you are missing the point here in regards to resident permit passes the City is imposing on these residents. There is an inalienable right for anyone to park on a public street where parking is permitted and the residents of these blocks to the east of the downtown have dealt with it just fine for decades. They may have had to, as another poster has pointed out, sometimes has to park somewhere else on the street other than in front of their own home at times but there was never a fee to do so in their residential neighbourhood. The important differentiation here is that the City, with it's own notice to the affected residents, cited the need for these paid resident only permits was a result of their own reduction of available parking in the downtown. For lords sake, they created the displacement of parking with their downtown improvements. Would the morally correct thing to do, since they openly admit to creating the problem, not be to provide parking permits for two vehicles per residence free of charge???? Forget even recouping the cost of the permits. They created the problem......they should pay for it!
I would like to see the City try to implement paid resident parking passes on the streets in somewhere like the Redlands or Wiltse neighbourhoods.
I have also yet to see any comments on my question of the counter productiveness of reducing parking in the revitalized downtown when the objective is to increase people visiting. It seems to be a bit of an elephant in the room that no one wants to see.

Excellent points, twobits! I asked someone who lives in one of these areas where passes are required. They said they were given 4 of them, free of charge. Could be used for themselves or visitors. Now the city claims they need to charge for them? I believe it was for increased enforcement? Sounds like they just want to up the City staff numbers again.

Re your last comment re the reduced parking downtown; very good point. Another dumb idea; pay parking or not, reducing means less customers, bottom line. Now, wait for it. The defenders (there are at least 3 of them on here) will chime in that they don't mind parking a few blocks away and walking or that they can take public transportation, etc. They, to, just don't get it. There was absolutely no need to go to Parallel parking in the 100 block and lose half the past parking spaces. Maybe the city doesn't WANT the public coming down to City Hall; who really knows.

[fluffy]

The defenders (there are at least 3 of them on here) will chime in that they don't mind parking a few blocks away and walking or that they can take public transportation, etc. They, to, just don't get it.

Get what? Your viewpoint? I totally get that, I just don't agree with it.

[XT225]

Get what? Your viewpoint? I totally get that, I just don't agree with it.

No problem, I would not expect you to agree that the revite and parking was poorly thought out, and done at great expense. The free parking is good, there just isn't enough of it. Here is a portion from a city council report from 2014 and IF they follow through with finishing the other 4 blocks and there IS indeed more parking than is there today, it will be very surprising. Yes, you can ask us to eat our hats at that point. Of course many of us may not be around by the time that happens.The last highlighted sentence sort of contradicts the first one. When angle parking (and yes, meters removed) were removed from the 100 block, that was a significant number of spaces lost.

Parking: Concerns related to loss of parking on Main Street were identified early in the development
and design of the project and through the design process it has been concluded that there
will be no loss of the parallel parking spaces along each side of the new street. The design of
the new sidewalk area and space allocations eliminate the need for businesses to remove any
of the on-street parking to make way for sidewalk cafés or outdoor related uses. Once the
project is complete over the length of Main Street, there will be more on-street parking than
what is available today

[southy]

XT - that article you speak of, I have read it and ya know what? I see smoke screen written all over this entire revite project. Oh the naysayers will be at me now saying "how dare you". Civic politics is no different than Christy, Justin, Trump, Clinton and Obama politics - what you see isn't always what is. Once again I coin Twobits phrase - lipstick on a pig - look how wonderful this revite is and by the way we got the infrastructure redone too how convenient. With all those highly paid new folks at CH there should be some really good spins coming our way soon. Gosh golly - can hardly wait.

[Daspoot]

A few just hate City Hall, the Councillors, The Mayor, and anyone who doesn't also hate them. Sour grapes left over from the election me-thinks.

More directly on-topic, any growing city goes through the same thing, parking in business centers becomes a problem and it becomes a war on the vehicle, particularly ones with Single Occupancy Vehicles in them. If you want to see what's coming, look at the bigger cities. You can expect the following:

Less Parking
Overall more expensive parking
More parking enforcement.
Parking passes needed for residential parking

...and following that:
Bike Lanes]
HOV lanes
Tolls
Transit taxes
elevated ICBC rates
Even higher parking costs

....Once you've had those for a while
Mass transit
Taxes to pay for mass transit
vehicle exclusion areas (Granville Downtown.)
Emissions regulation and testing
ridiculous parking costs if it's even still available.

As you can see Penticton is just at the very beginning of parking/vehicle wars with about 10-12 more steps to come eventually (years, decades?). Yet people are already all up in arms. I can hardly wait for the self-righteous outrage threads when they close downtown to vehicles all together and people have to give up there 6 passenger vehicles that haven't had a single passenger in for years and walk a few blocks or figure out how to get their bottle of plonk without being able to park right outside the door of the liquor store.

I swear some of you act like you've never been to the Lower Mainland, let alone Kelowna, acting all uppity and mad because they've reduced parking downtown by a few spots and put in residential parking passes in neighbouring areas. Do you live in a bubble? Downtown adjacent residential parking at $0.08/day, oh the humanity! they even threw you a bone with free parking downtown and that makes you mad too.

They know what I know, nothing will make some people happy, and everything and anything will make a few vocal yocals mad, and they are usually people with nothing better to do that post, write letters and expand on how it's not what they like so it must be wrong at it's basis. After a while you just become background noise, and life as it needs to be in a growth-based society will go on while you drone on about anything and everything.

[Daspoot]

ps: for those thinking angled parking has advantages, do yourself and us a favour and do a quick google search on the dangers of angled parking. It has many elevated risk factors, and in a city full of seniors it's a significant problem. I'm betting the 100 block used to have an elevated vehicle and pedestrian accident rate over blocks with parallel parking.

It's a very significant concern. I know parallel parking is a little more difficult, but if you can't pull it off on a regular basis in a timely manner you shouldn't be behind the wheel in the first place, it's part of the driving test for a reason. Walk or take a bus, if you're really stuck, call me, I'd rather drive you than have you hurt someone, or yourself.

[Daspoot]

<snip>The last highlighted sentence sort of contradicts the first one

no it doesn't
"there will be no less"
"there will be more".

there is no contradiction between those two statements.

When angle parking (and yes, meters removed) were removed from the 100 block, that was a significant number of spaces lost.

"there will be no net loss of parallel parking spaces" does not include angled parking spots. Parallel is not the same as angled, they are different, and angled is much more dangerous than parallel, they are scads of studies showing that.

Parking: Concerns related to loss of parking on Main Street were identified early in the development
and design of the project and through the design process it has been concluded that there
will be no loss of the parallel parking spaces along each side of the new street. The design of
the new sidewalk area and space allocations eliminate the need for businesses to remove any
of the on-street parking to make way for sidewalk cafés or outdoor related uses. Once the
project is complete over the length of Main Street, there will be more on-street parking than
what is available today

[southy]

Oh come on Dazzy .. you take life way to serious! Background noise? I think not! Taxpayers and those concerned with what has occurred at city hall over the past two years and may continue to occur in the future have a right to voice their displeasure. How can you really compare what happens in Vancouver or any other large metro area with Penticton or even think Penticton will ever encounter some of the issues occurring in those areas? Sour grapes over the election results? Again, here you go assuming and generalizing ... I really really really REALLY hate to admit it Dazzy but I was one of those who voted this gang of misfits in and I live in regret every day. So don't you start finger pointing without knowing the facts!! Have to head downtown - I've got my Smart car warming up in the driveway . Have a great weekend Dazzy - it's fun isn't it???

[Jamesie]

Downtown will have to be redone and this whole discussion will be moot when driverless cars become mainstream (and soon thereafter mandatory), which is going to be much sooner than most people think. No need to park for any visit longer than a five minute errand. Just send the car on its way to some out of town lot, or even better, on to the next car share passenger. Can't wait!

[Daspoot]

Oh come on Dazzy .. you take life way to serious! Background noise? I think not! Taxpayers and those concerned with what has occurred at city hall over the past two years and may continue to occur in the future have a right to voice their displeasure. How can you really compare what happens in Vancouver or any other large metro area with Penticton or even think Penticton will ever encounter some of the issues occurring in those areas? Sour grapes over the election results? Again, here you go assuming and generalizing ... I really really really REALLY hate to admit it Dazzy but I was one of those who voted this gang of misfits in and I live in regret every day. So don't you start finger pointing without knowing the facts!! Have to head downtown - I've got my Smart car warming up in the driveway . Have a great weekend Dazzy - it's fun isn't it???

Absolutely background noise, every once in a while a group gets loud enough to screw up some proposal or another, but every single idea gets it's share of NIMBY's and BANANAs and after a while they tune it out, like living by an airport.... What plane?

As far as finger pointing without knowing the facts, believe it or not, my posts are not addressed solely to you.

And hey, I was downtown today too, but my car is not so smart, you have a good weekend too, I suspect that even us two could find some common ground over a coffee, but not downtown right.....

[twobits]

Another poster sent me this link. Yet more money for downtown. Read it and weep when you do the math and all of it foregone taxes that should go into City coffers instead of downtown building owners. This is seriously nuts! Property improvement paid for by taxpayers.....100% of taxes eliminated until the improvement is paid off. Have a close look at the picture and see if you can identify a business owner lol.

http://downtownpenticton.org/facade-upgrade-program/