The District of Squamish seeks public input as it develops a plan to manage Downtown and tourism-based parking. The community is invited to provide input and express individual parking needs and challenges that will help to inform the development of a Parking Management Plan.
A community survey is now open at letstalksquamish.ca/parking-management. The survey includes questions specific to: Downtown residents; Downtown business owners; employees of Downtown businesses; residents of SeaANDSky; and the broader community and neighbouring areas.
“The community has asked us to take action on parking management, and our challenge is to create a plan to manage increasing demand that considers many different interests and needs,” says District of Squamish Mayor Armand Hurford. “This phase of the project is about receiving input from the community to help shape a plan that will meet those needs.”
The District released a Downtown Parking Study in 2023, which assessed parking utilization changes since the last study was done in 2017. The report found that parking in Downtown Squamish averaged at about 67% utilization (meaning that 67% of the total number of spots were occupied) during weekdays, 76% utilization on weekends, and 88% utilization during peak periods.
Utilization rates consistently above 85% can indicate a parking management issue. This generally requires introducing measures to manage demand, such as paid parking, increased bike parking, and greater support of alternative modes of transportation, such as transit.
The District is now exploring a series of parking management measures to ensure parking remains available and accessible in Downtown Squamish. Input from residents will help shape details of a resident-exempt program in certain areas, programs to meet the needs of Downtown businesses and their employees, locations for additional accessible parking spots and new loading zones, to name a few.
District staff will use the input to help develop a ‘Phased Parking Management Implementation Plan’ for Council’s consideration.
Alex says
1. Get rid of these curbside eating drop-bye zones tgg ha at Muni Hall sells for cash at the expense of cars cheated out of space.
2. Stop selling developers the ability to avoid building the REQUIRED parking spaces , causing a frenzy around the FEW available spots .
Council and Staff have to stop sellng their souls . The silver isn’t worth it.