City Council moves ahead with some parking study recommendations

Prince George City Council received the results of a review of parking in the downtown and hospital zones at last night’s (Wednesday) meeting.

The 133-page report came with a number of recommendations (recommendations start on page 91) for Council, broken down into three categories:

• Administrative: Recommendations to be studied by Administration or Staff to determine feasibility and implementation using existing resources if appropriate.
• Planning guidance: Recommendations relating to a future scenario, possibly too far into the future to warrant a specific action currently.
• Council direction: Recommendations of a nature that direction would support next steps in the short-term.

“For years, we’ve been hearing from downtown business owners, Downtown PG, people who just like to go downtown and visit businesses, that the parking model that we use right now is broken,” said Councillor Kyle Sampson, who originally brought forward the notice of motion calling for the review in May 2024.

“My understanding is that the primary issue is definitely not having three hours for free, it’s the fact that if you stop downtown for 30 minutes at 9:00 a.m., and try to go back at 2:00 p.m., you’re now infraction of that three hours for free.”

Sampson said he thinks this has discouraged people from going downtown, later in the day if they’ve been in the area earlier in the day.

“From what I’m hearing, a free window of parking is a non-negotiable,” he said.

“People who come downtown and business owners expect people to be able to come to their businesses and not be burdened.”

Sampson added this isn’t about a revenue generator, it’s about making a model that’s practicable for people, saying revenues generated from parking should be used for initiatives for downtown safety.

Sampson put forward a motion with three parts directing staff to:

• Maintain a three-hour free parking window in the downtown and hospital zones, with the added flexibility to allow users to pay for pay for additional time
• Dedicate all revenue from on-street paid parking downtown to go towards downtown safety and cleanliness initiatives
• Develop and deliver a communications campaign to ensure the public clearly understands how the parking model works.

For Sampson’s three-part motion, maintaining a three-hour parking window and developing the communications campaign passed, while the revenue piece was referred to staff for more information.

Council was also presented with seven recommendations from staff at last night’s meeting, including:

• Receive the report for information,
• Direct staff to move forward with recommendations 4a and 14a in the report regarding physical pay stations,
• Direct staff to harmonize the number of hours of free parking in the downtown and hospital zones at two or three hours, (This was taken care of with Sampson’s motion)
• Direct staff to review and update the Parking Bylaw,
• Direct staff to explore a visitor parking pass program,
• Direct staff to include the 2nd Avenue two-way traffic, conversion project in the 2026 Capital Plan
• Refer to staff items that are administrative in nature,

All of these were passed.