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It’s a way of getting paid parking implemented, from there, prices will increase over time like at other beaches, says one park user.
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As pay parking rolled out Friday for the first time at Spanish Banks, a petition opposing the year-long experiment kept garnering signatures.
More than 6,400 people have signed the petition calling on the Vancouver park board to halt its pilot program charging $1 hourly to park at one of 744 stalls in four lots and other spots along Northwest Marine Drive during the summer. Fees will be reduced in the off-season.
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“Parking is charged at other beaches like Kits and Jericho, but there’s a reason,” reads the online petition. “Those beaches both have limited parking and far easier public transport and bike access. Spanish Banks is long and has a great deal of parking. People come … by car because it is by far the easiest way to get there, especially for large families, the elderly, disabled or people with barbecues or other beach gear.”
Vancouver’s Simon Uden, who signed the petition, is among those outraged by the fees.
“A dollar is just how it begins,” said the 40-year-old regular of the park. “It’s a way of getting paid parking implemented, from there, prices will increase over time like at other beaches.”
During the summer at nearby Jericho Beach, parking costs visitors $3.75 an hour up to a daily maximum of $14.24. At other city beaches, Kitsilano and Third Beach, parking is $4.25 an hour in peak season.
When presented to the board in April, park staff said the program would help alleviate motorist traffic and parking congestion, citing municipal data from 2023 that showed street and parking lots at Spanish Banks were at 85 per cent capacity.
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They also said it’s expected to drum up $150,000 in revenue over the next year, aligning with the park board’s “think big” revenue-generating strategy of amassing $500,000 annually to invest in city parks.
But not everyone on the board agrees with the initiative.
Jas Virdi, the park board commissioner who voted against the experiment in May, says there’s one main reason why he’s against it.
“It reduces accessibility for park-goers,” Virdi said, noting that the closest public transit stop to the beach is about one kilometre, or a 20-minute walk, away. “Growing up, my parents used to take my siblings and I and my grandparents to Spanish Banks for the day, and that would be something difficult to do by bus.”
The pilot mirrors a previous effort by the board to implement pay parking in 2018, which was curtailed following public backlash, including a petition that cited accessibility concerns for park-goers.
Virdi would prefer to see families and mobility-limited individuals enjoy the beach at no cost, rather than have the park board gain a new stream of revenue, which he said, “really doesn’t add much to our bottom lime.”
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To mitigate negative impacts on nearby residents the board is considering implementing permit parking on residential blocks to ensure street parking remains available to them.
“At least 50 per cent of households on a block must be supportive of permit parking for it to proceed on that block,” reads a park staff report.
The April report to the park board indicated that a total of 546 calls made to the city’s tip information line between June 2017 and October 2023 were about parking at Spanish Banks. The most common feedback from those calls involved reports of cars or trailers parked at the beach overnight or illegally vending, followed by a vocal opposition to the possibility of paid parking being introduced.
For Uden, who frequents Spanish Banks year-round, finding an available space to park has never been an issue.
“Sure, sometimes you drive around for a few minutes during peak hours on a summer weekend, but during all hours from Monday to Friday, there’s spots available,” Uden said. “I’ve only ever seen it crowded to the point of chaos on a handful of days.”
sgrochowski@postmedia.com
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