Free Calgary Transit park-and-ride spots could soon be eliminated

All parking spaces at Calgary Transit park-and-ride lots could soon be reserved spots and come with a fee.

City council's transportation committee gave the green light toa proposal Wednesday that would see the city move to monthly reserved parking at all transit lots.

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The change would still need to be approvedby council, as a whole, before taking effect.

Neil McKendrick, the city'smanager of operational transit planning,said this plan is different from a previous moveto charge for spaces in 2008.

"It would be much more customer-focused, and much more technology-focused," McKendrick said of the current proposal.

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Mayor Naheed Nenshi has opposed the plan.

"Making the lots 100 per cent reserved I think is a terrible idea and I think that it goes exactly against our goal especially in a time of declining ridership which is to encourage people to take transit," Nenshi said earlier in the week.

Coun. Shane Keating, however, said the proposal could help make better use of the existing spaces.

"You could have a reserved parking lot that is a dollar a month,but what it does is it alleviates the difficulty of someone knowing whether they can get in there and they drive around and try to find a stall because we have many parking lots that are full," he said.

McKendrick said there is a lot of demand for the few spaces that exist.

"We have 13,000 spaces available for transit customers on LRT," he said. "We have 250,000 daily customers."

The committee also asked Calgary Transit to look at charging more for people who live outside the city to park in those lots.

Currently, half of the parking spaces are reserved at $85 a monthand the rest are free, but there is no guarantee a free spot will be available on a given day.

There are about 7,000 peopleon wait lists for a reserved spot.

McKendrick saidgenerating revenue is a priority for the transit system,overall.

"Improving the bus services is a huge priority, but right now we don't have the money to do that," he said.

Currently, half of the spaces in park-and-ride lots are reserved, at a price of $85 per month.

If city council approves the proposal, Calgary Transit will develop a plan to implement the policy and determine how much reserved parking should cost at each station.

Here are some stories about the past changes to park-and-ride fees:

• Commuters to pay $3 a day for park-and-ride
• Parking tickets spike after $3 park-and-ride fee introduced
• Council kills C-Train park-and-ride fee