Managing Parking: A Lesson from Juneau, Alaska

Last week, I took my very first Alaskan cruise. While I generally don’t like playing the role of “tourist”, taking a cruise up to Alaska is actually a pretty cost-effective way to see the area. While seeing receding glaciers calving was both awe inspiring and depressing, as I saw first-hand the effects of climate change, I want to talk about parking in Alaska.

Juneau is the capital of Alaska and has a population of around 30,000. The community has an old downtown core as well as a typical “Langley Bypass”-type area complete with Wal-Mart, Home Depot, and all the regular chains. In some regards Juneau reminded me a bit of Langley.

Entering Parking Management Zone Sign in Juneau, Alaska.

One of the first things I noticed about Downtown Juneau is that they had a parking management plan in place. I thought the plan was ingenious. Like Downtown Langley and Fort Langley, Downtown Juneau had a parking problem; there never seemed to be enough short-term on-street parking spots free. Just like in Langley City or Fort Langley, and pretty much every other city with “free” on-street parking, long-term parkers were taking up the premium on-street spaces. While the simple solution is to introduce paid parking on-street to limit demand to 80% occupancy, it can be politically difficult to start charging for parking that used to be “free.”

In order to help manage parking demand in a politically sensitive manner, Juneau installed parking payment/registration stations in their walkable downtown core. In downtown, anyone who parks a vehicle must register at one of the parking stations. Once registered, a vehicle will get two-free hours of parking per day after which it will cost $2 per hour. The genius of the parking plan is three-fold. First, it prevents long-term parkers from playing musical-chairs with their vehicles as the two-hour parking limit does not reset if a vehicle is moved to another space. Second, it warms people up to the idea of paying for on-street parking to manage the demand. Finally, it allows people to pay a price for on-street parking if they wish to park longer than two hours in the downtown core.

As most buildings don’t have on-site parking in Downtown Juneau, there is also two city run off-street parking facilities. To encourage the use of these facilities, short-term parking is pricing at $0.50 to $0.75 per hour within them. For long-term parking, weekly, monthly, and yearly parking passes are available. A monthly parking pass in Downtown Juneau is currently $50 per month.

If Juneau was able to introduce a parking management strategy that included paid on-street parking, certainly a similar plan could be introduced in Downtown Langley and Fort Langley. One of the reasons why there is an apparent parking problem in Downtown Langley and Fort Langley is that many people who work in the area end up parking in the limited on-street spots. Introducing a parking policy like in Juneau would be a good first step to managing parking in both these areas.

Beside managing on-street parking, as I’ve posted about in the past, a central parkade is also important as it provides a place for long-term parking without needing minimum on-site parking requirements that would turn a walkable core into “Langley Bypass”-type areas.

Leap Ahead transit plan, what's next, and the PST

It has been about three weeks since Leap Ahead, a transit plan for Metro Vancouver has been released. One of the objectives Paul Hillsdon and I set for the plan was to start a productive conversation about transit funding in the region again. By all accounts, I think we have succeeded. Leap Ahead got a good amount of coverage in the mainstream media. We also sent the plan to all local governments in the region. Local governments have reached out, and we’ve had some good chats with local mayors, planners, and even TransLink about Leap Ahead, transit funding, and the potential transit funding referendum next year. One of the questions that many people have been asking is now that the plan has been released, what is the next step.

Well, I’m happy to report that other groups are gearing up to fight for transit expansion in the region, and have embraced the framework presented in Leap Ahead. One such organization that I’m helping out is GetOnBoard BC. I highly suggest you check out their website and consider volunteering some of your time with them. Another organization that has written about Leap Ahead is Moving in a Livable Region.

Generally, I’ve heard positive feedback about using a small 0.5% increase in PST in Metro Vancouver to pay for transit expansion. In fact, the people I’ve talked to that don’t support an increase in PST to pay for transit don’t believe transit is important, or hate sale taxes in general. I don’t think any facts or figures will convince these people to think differently. Of course, there is a broad spectrum of people that might be sitting on the fence, and giving them more information will help.

Moving in a Livable Region wrote a great post on their website about using a 0.5% increase in PST to fund transit. I suggest that you check out the full post, but I wanted to share two important sections.

Sales Tax Comparison: Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal. Click graph to enlarge.

The graph show that even with an increase in PST, Metro Vancouver will still have a lower sales tax than the two other major centres in Canada: Toronto and Montreal.

Two obstacles to the regional sales tax include the Metro Vancouver business community and low-income households. Businesses would have to weigh the gains of reduced travel times and higher customer visit rates against a slight tax disadvantage (compared to neighbouring regions). For low-income households the sales tax would be slightly regressive due to the fact that retail expenditure takes up a larger chunk of this group’s budget. However, since public transit funding disproportionately benefits lower income households, the retail sales tax hit might be negated. The concept of a new sales tax is pragmatic, straightforward, and tested in other regions. Contrary to the failed HST platform with its seemingly intangible benefits, the 0.5% “tax for transit” proposal puts five hard projects on the table.

One of the other comments I heard from people is that there should be higher transit fares to pay for expansion. This is a fair request, but as pointed out by Moving in a Livable Region this is “something Translink has tried to do, only to be denied by its independent regulator” which was setup by the province.

With a potential referendum on transit funding only a year away, I will be working with organizations like GetOnBoard BC to help win the referendum so we can expand transit in our region.

Canadian regions are suburban

David Gordon, a Queen’s University researcher and urban planner, has been researching Canadian metropolitan areas for several years. He recently released a report which shows that over 2/3rds of Canadians live in some form of suburban neighbourhood.

Gordon doesn’t define suburbs as areas far away from the central city. For example, the City of Vancouver has auto-oriented suburbs in his research. Gordon defines two types of suburban areas: transit-supporting and auto-oriented. Gordon developed a method to determine whether an area was an active core where walking and cycling rates are higher than average in a region, a transit supporting suburb where transit usage is higher than average in a region, or an auto-oriented suburb. He piloted his theory in the Ottawa region in 2011. He has now expanded his research and investigated 33 Canadian metropolitan areas.

Classification of neighbourhoods in Metro Vancouver as Active Core, Transit Suburban, or Auto Suburban. Click image to enlarge.

The classification of areas as active, auto-oriented suburban, or transit-friendly suburban is based on 2006 Census information. Population information is based on 2011 Census information. In Metro Vancouver, there has been changes to our urban form since 2006. For example, the research doesn’t take into account the impact of the Canada Line.

While the research might not have the most up-to-date data, the key takeaway is that most Canadians are living in auto-oriented neighbourhoods. Gordon himself said “many policy-makers over-estimate the size of the highly visible downtown core and underestimate the vast growth happening in the suburban edges.”

In our region, the City of Vancouver seems to get all the attention when it comes to livability and sustainability. Many people that are passionate about sustainable communities seem to spend most of their energy focusing on the City of Vancouver, but ignore the rest of the region. With Gordon's research in mind, and the fact that the highest growth areas in Metro Vancouver are in places like Surrey and Langley, more energy should be spent outside of the City of Vancouver.

Transportation and land-use planning go hand-in-hand. While South of Fraser communities can do a better job of creating walkable nodes, without transit to connect them, most people will still need to drive a vehicle. The key is to provide frequent transit service to these node and connect them together.

The major limiting factor in Metro Vancouver to increase sustainability and livability is that there is no funding to increase transit service in the region. Without increasing transit service, our suburban areas are likely going to remain auto-oriented.

Roberts Bank Terminal II Public Consultation Update

For a few years, I’ve been following Port Metro Vancouver as it goes through planning and public consultation for the proposed expansion of its Deltaport Terminal with the 190 hectare Roberts Bank Terminal Two expansion project. I was involved early on in the pre-consultation, and you can read about the meetings held in 2011, 2012, and 2013. These pre-consultation meetings were meant to make sure that the materials presented during the public consultation contain information that people are interesting in, and that the feedback that the Port asks people during the consultation is relevant to public concerns.

Earlier this year, the Port completed its first round of public consultation which addressed the high-level aspects of the project including environmental, social, and economic impact. You can read more about this in a post I wrote this summer. The Port is now about to launch into the next phase of public consultation which will focus on the early design considerations for the proposed Roberts Bank Terminal Two. Consultation material will be posted to their website on October 7th. The Port will be hosting small group meetings and traditional open houses throughout the region. You must register to attend the small group meetings by emailing container.improvement@portmetrovancouver.com.

South of Fraser Small Group Meetings:

Wednesday, October 9
5:00pm-7:00pm
Coast Hotel and Convention Centre
20393 Fraser Hwy, Langley

Thursday, October 10
1:00pm-3:00pm
Delta Town & Country Inn
6005 Hwy 17, Delta

Tuesday, October 15
1:00pm-3:00pm
Surrey Arts Centre
13750 88 Ave, Surrey

Personally, I find the small group meetings the best opportunity to provide feedback and also ask questions. You can find more information about the date, time, and location of open houses on their website.

The Port has also setup an online forum called PortTalk to allow people to provide feedback about this project, other projects, ask general questions, and post their concerns about the Port and its operation.

It is good to see that the Port has so many ways for people to provide feedback, but I sometime wonder if that feedback changes how the port operates. There has been concerns about increased coal exports from the Port. This received lots of media attention. It wasn't until there was extreme public pressure that the Port started to respond to people’s concerns. Some have accused the Port of green-washing projects.

Port Metro Vancouver has launched a new Sustainability Vision and Strategy Initiative Advisory Panel which includes the likes of Kinder Morgan and Canadian Pacific Railway, but also includes the World Wildlife Fund Canada and Pacific Salmon Foundation. It will be interesting to see how effective this panel is.

Compared to a decade ago years ago, the Port is doing a better job of connecting with the public. The challenge is that the Port has the mandate to increase goods movement through its facilities even if the social and environmental costs are high. This will only change if the federal government, who the Port is accountable to, requires the Port to consider the economic, social, and environmental bottom line. Without this change, projects like the Terminal Two project are almost certainly a done deal.