Prince Rupert Parking and what to do about it ...

One of the feature items from Mayor Lee Brain's State of the City presentation of June is getting an update from City Staff this evening, with the staffers set to introduce what would be an Interim Parking Strategy for the Community.

At the Lester Centre presentation of June, the Mayor observed of the frequent commentary of residents towards parking and hinted towards some of the solutions that the city had in mind.

Tonight City Staff will expand on some those solutions both short and longer term.

The thumbnail sketch of the Strategy comes from an Agenda Report for tonight.

click to enlarge

The full report to be presented tonight puts those plans into much more detail, the introduction to the report providing some of the focus for the Interim strategy.

Council’s 2022 Strategic Plan includes the development of a parking strategy as one of its objectives. This report presents an interim City Core parking strategy for the City of Prince Rupert. It has been prepared based on a review of current parking policy, local parking data, and the policy initiatives underway in the City. 

It has also been guided by the local knowledge and insights of City staff. The value of an interim strategy is that it enables a rapid response to significant emerging parking issues, as these actions are recommended to be actioned within the next 1-3 years. It can provide some early direction and response in an informed manner to local conditions. 

The City can subsequently work towards a more robust parking strategy couched in the Prince Rupert Transportation Plan.

The extensive report which totals twenty pages, provides some history towards the theme of parking and offers up some examples of some interim measures towards resolving some of the challenges of parking in the community.

The report (available on line through the Agenda package for tonight starting at page 91 ) outlines 8 Parking Management actions:

Management Action 1: Removing minimum parking requirements from a parking specified area (PSA) downtown. 

 Management Action 2: Encourage Shared Parking Agreements between private businesses, or private businesses and the City to optimize existing parking. 

 Management Action 3: Seek opportunities to develop public parking lots in the City Core as needed to serve longer term users through land acquisition or conversion of municipally-owned lots. 

 Management Action 4: Maximize parking on 2nd and 7th Street to serve longer term users and free up street parking along 2nd and 3rd Ave. 

 Management Action 5: Reconfiguring 2nd and 3rd Avenues W to increase on-street parking. 

 Management Action 6: Increase enforcement actions. 

 Management Action 7: Implement an Interim Parking Wayfinding Strategy 

 Management Action 8: Work to Implement Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure

One such measure would be additional parking for the Cow Bay Area, something that Mayor Brain had made note of back in June.

"So, first things first, we are doing a parking plan, we are looking at doing a parking lot, a big parking lot in the Midtown, in the New downtown and the Marina District, so creating three new parking areas.

But also we're looking at reorienting the streetscapes, so this is what so far is a concept plan, concept plan for Third Avenue. 

So you're coming down this way you would have angle parking on one side of the street, we'd increase parking by thirty, potentially forty percent of parking on Third Avenue." -- Mayor Lee Brain on parking at the June State of the City presentation

The report for tonight observes as to how the Cow Bay (Marina District) option would be delivered.

Specifically, staff are recommending the development of an interim parking lot on Lot 9 to be developed in the next year. This lot would serve the lower Cow Bay area and meet demand for longer term parking for businesses such as Breakers, Cowpuccinos or Smiles. Figure 5 demonstrates a conceptual drawing of this lot.

Conceptual drawing from Report

The document also comes with Eight recommendations for the council members to consider tonight.

Recommendation 1: Council should remove minimum parking requirements from a parking specified area (Appendix 2) in the City Core, providing that there is no loss of existing spaces. 

Recommendation 2: Council should encourage shared parking agreements between private businesses, or between private businesses and the City, to optimize existing off-street parking. This can be done through the establishment of a Commercial Stall Lease License. 

Recommendation 3: Council should direct staff to seek opportunities for land acquisition to develop public parking lots in the City Core as needed to serve longer term users, e.g.employees. Specifically, Council should direct staff to direct resources to actioning an interim parking lot on Lot 9. 

Recommendation 4: Council should direct staff to action management actions that maximize parking on 2nd and 7th Street to serve longer term users and free up street parking along 2nd and 3rd Ave. 

Recommendation 5: Council should direct staff to continue to work with the Province to reconfigure 2nd and 3rd Avenues W to add angled parking and implement a bike lane. 

Recommendation 6: Council should direct staff to explore options for increasing parking enforcement actions. 

Recommendation 7: Council should direct staff to develop and implement an Interim Parking Wayfinding Strategy 

Recommendation 8: Council should direct staff to begin work on implementing more EV charging infrastructure in Prince Rupert.

You can follow the introduction of the Report and any questions that the City Council members may have for staff related to it as part of the live Stream of tonight's Council session.

More notes on tonight's Council Session can be reviewed here.