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The Weirdness That is Victoria Resident Parking

Byoliveridley
Picture of many cars parked on both sides of a street

Donald Shoup, the author of the high cost of free parking and a god-like figure in the urban circles that look at parking in cities/towns and say “too much, too cheap!” (we’re very popular at parties) died recently. His death reminded me that for a while now, I have wanted to talk about Victoria’s strange and ridiculous neighbourhood resident parking system that rewards already wealthy people with free public land to store their personal belongings.

I’ve always lived close enough to downtown that the parking spots in front of my home had been restricted, either no parking or two hour parking. So I hadn’t really paid much attention to the resident parking rules except to know when I could get away with parking in a residential zone for a few minutes. That changed when I moved to North Park and discovered that around the corner from our new place, I could leave my car parked with zero restrictions, all the time! So, I was curious and started ducking (is that what you say when you use Duckduckgo?!) to see how I could get a permit? Turns out, there are no permits! And it’s FREE! You park your car on your block till someone complains about you, then parking enforcement gives you a ticket. You appeal this ticket with documentary proof of your address, and voila, ticket is rescinded and your license plate is entered into the system. WHAT?!

First off, FREE? Parking especially in Victoria is a scarce commodity, and the people who live in these blocks are already either relatively well-off (relative, don’t compare yourself to the Westons!) or renting from the wealthy. Resident blocks are typically found only in what we call “residential” neighbourhoods, and by residential we mean single family home-heavy, not rental building with hundreds of residents. This is a massive subsidy. In my neighourhood, I see commercial parking advertised for 250-300$ a month. Perhaps there’s less demand in Rocklands, but at a minimum, that’s approximately 160 sq feet (or 15 m^2) of public land that’s paved, maintained and given over to store your stuff (if your stuff is a car, good luck if it’s a tent and you want shelter) for free!

Secondly, a SNITCH DRIVEN SYSTEM? Someone’s neighbour with little better to do has to complain and then we waste city resources on writing a ticket, sending one, an appeals process, all of which is time spent by a city official that generates cost and no revenue? Where does this money come from? I presume from property taxes?

At a time when we’re struggling to pay for the mandatory police-dominated municipal budget and everything else that needs building and maintaining, why are we giving away storage on public space for free? We need to start the discussion around what’s appropriate payment for a resident to store their car in a well-maintained public space. Given it’s not guaranteed parking I guess it can’t be $300 a month which is full retail value, but some reasonable fraction right? Remember that in most of these neighbourhoods, your home already has a garage that’s meant for car storage but has been repurposed as extra house because you can store your car for free. Even if we start at a $200 per year, that gives a permit to hang in the car/sticker so we can stop this snitch-based enforcement mechanism.

Anyway, nothing’s likely to happen given how loud the people who own homes and thus assume ownership of the free parking in front of their homes get, and how afraid councillors are of loud home owners. But I’m still going to advocate for a better system when I talk to someone on council next. Donald Shoup would insist!

Anyway, the always excellent SIdewalking blog has a very informative post on the same issue, check that one out too!

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Oak Bay goes electric

Byoliveridley

Oak Bay has found the vehicles that fit its green policy and low speed limits — electric cars that top out at a maximum speed of 50 km/h.The municipality is drafting a bylaw that would allow electric cars on its public streets, making it possibly the first municipality in B.C. to take advantage of new provincial legislation that expands where the innovative vehicles can be driven.”I don’t think we’ll see any speed differences in Oak Bay just because we have slower-moving vehicles like electric cars,” Coun. Nils Jensen said yesterday of the impact on traffic movement in the notoriously slower-moving community.

Oak Bay nears electric-car nirvana

 gv.gifFor those not in the know, Oak Bay is a municipality that is part of the Greater Victoria area. We have 11 separate municipalities, which makes for some serious inefficiencies and redundancy in administration, but does tend to preserve local character. Oak Bay, in my humble opinion, is insufferably British and proper, very wealthy and quite beautiful. And yes, it is a slow moving town, perfect for 50 kmph vehicles.

But Oak Bay is not an island, it is flanked by Victoria and Saanich, and the boundaries are not always clearly demarcated. What’s going to happen when someone randomly wanders into Saanich?

Except for the stretch of 17 going up to Sidney and the stretch of 1 going West and North out of the area, 50kmph ought to cover most of the area. I suspect Victoria will follow suit soon.

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My kid loves statistics and 15 minute cities

Byoliveridley
My kid’s transport goals for the year

We have started this simple diary where my 7 yo tracks each of her trips and categorizes them as car or not car. I find the analog simplicity of this approach to be appealing and I’ll be helping her keep this updated. I am also resisting temptation to add more data to this survey for myself (her project, not mine!) My movement goals are the same as hers, walk and bike as much as practicable leaving driving only for the “it’s too far or I don’t have even 10 minutes to spare or I have to carry something that won’t fit on my cargo bike, or it’s not safe to bike with a kid”.

Our life for the most part now fits the 15 minute city model, the concept that “Everyone living in a city should have access to essential urban services within a 15 minute walk or bike.”. Other than my once a week commute to work, almost everything we do is in that 15 minute walk/bike window and while our all age and abilities bike network is still work in progress, the trend is clear (thanks Dave Thompson Victoria City Councilor for the graphic from the CRD transportation survey)

Income Inequality = Super VIllains

Byoliveridley

From the very awesome Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal Website, a reminder that income inequality causes more super villains than science, and mashing DNA 🙂  Canada’s Conference Board, which no one would accuse of being socialist, came up with a report yesterday flagging growing inequality in Canada. They flagged inequality as “raising questions of fairness”, and declared it of “moral concern”.

They are late to the party. The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has been on this beat for years, and has an ongoing project called The Growing Gap about income inequality. Go read The Spirit level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett of the Inequality Trust in the UK for an epidemiological look at inequality and various social conditions.

Just wanted to share the awesome cartoon, that’s all 🙂

Image of fisherman's wharf, Victoria BC
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Let all residents vote in Canada

Byoliveridley

BC has municipal elections in October this year and I will be voting for the candidates whose policies, values and voting records on housing affordability, harm reduction, and walk/bike/transit friendliness match mine the closest. I might even have an endorsement or three up my sleeve. This year, I will also be asking Victoria’s municipal election candidates where they stand on letting permanent residents vote in our elections.

In the 2016 census, nearly 2.5 million people identified as non-citizen residents, out of which two million were permanent residents. The permanent residents live here, work here, play here, pay taxes, grow pensions, volunteer, commit crimes (yes, they’re like any other Canadian) and more, just like those with Canadian citizenship. However, they have no say in who represents them municipally, provincially or federally. I find this unfair, so do many people, including the Vancouver city council, who passed a resolution in 2018 (PDF) calling for the province to approve voting by permanent residents. This globe news article provides a good backgrounder.

In short, municipalities have run into the conservative buzzsaw that is the state of our (mostly) conservative or liberal provincial governments. This won’t change unless more people speak up.

The opposition is mainly that non-citizens are not sufficiently “invested” in the country, they’re too “new”. The more paranoid ones talk about divided loyalties, and bring up stories of foreigners being flown in to vote. Perhaps they should try getting a visitor visa to Canada (spoiler alert, difficult).  People who judge other people’s belonging or membership, however, usually have other items on their agenda. Let’s just leave it at that.

From my perspective, extending the vote is common sense, fair and just, and that’s that.

Permanent residents? The case is simple. They’re like citizens in all ways, except for voting, and having to renew every five years. If you want to make life difficult, you could ask them to renew voter registration every five years too, but really, you shouldn’t. Are you concerned about “loyalties”? If you are, then you should not be letting the thousands of dual British-Canadian passport holders vote.

How about residents without the permanent residency paperwork? Don’t see why not? If you’re concerned about timing of residency, put a time limit on the voting registration. There are very few non-permanent residents in Canada, half a million at last count, so, impact is small.

Undocumented? May be difficult, especially with visibility and its consequences. But, I would support it if we can find a solution that protects people while allowing for verifying identity for voting.

Of course, giving people a vote does not solve most problems, but that’s not the point. We see conservatives south of the boarder ceaselessly chipping away at the right of non-white people to vote. We need to be be going in the opposite direction on representation.

So, here are the questions on this issue I intend to ask Victoria’s municipal candidates in 2018:

  1. Do you support efforts to extend voting rights to all residents in Victoria?
  2. If you do, what are you willing/able to do to make this happen at the municipal level at least, then at the provincial level and federal levels?

A “no” on #1 is going to make it difficult to vote for you. A “yes” on #1 without some coherent plan on #2 means that you need to think about it some more.

Are you with me? Would you be willing to ask prospective candidates the same questions? Should there be additional questions? Do these questions make sense, or should they be reworked?

Cross-posted from interrobang

 

Victoria, not so quiet after all

Byoliveridley

One man is dead and two others are in hospital after a shooting near a popular downtown Victoria nightclub early yesterday.Officers were called to the scene around 2:50 a.m. after a report of shots fired outside 751 View St., between Douglas and Blanshard streets.Yesterday morning, forensic investigators inspected the body as it lay covered by a white tarp on the edge of the sidewalk in front of the exit to the View Street city parkade, about two buildings down from the Red Jacket nightclub.

One dead, two in hospital after shooting outside bar
Yikes…

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