Remaining free street parking at Olympic Village now metered
All of the remaining free street parking spaces in Vancouver’s Olympic Village district are now metered as of today.
Dozens of curbside spaces located along West 1st Avenue, Columbia Street and Athletes Way were previously free to park for two hours until last week, and they have since been replaced with pay parking regulated by walk-up pay machines that require typing in a license plate.
In an email to Daily Hive, the city says the introduction of parking meters is part of the city’s Transportation 2040 plan, which highlights “a need to manage curb space with variable or performance pricing strategies to ensure on-street space availability and reduce emissions and traffic congestion caused by drivers searching for available parking.”
Municipal government officials say they plan for a peak parking occupancy rate of 85%, which means one or two spaces per block should be available.
“As the neighbourhood grows, the demand for on-street parking has exceeded this threshold,” says the city.
Street parking rates are raised by $1 per hour if parking is above 85% and lowered by $1 per hour on blocks with lower occupancy rates lower than 60%. But the minimum rate is $1 per hour.
“After meters are installed, the city then monitors these areas and adjusts parking requirements as to stay as close to its target occupancy as possible,” the city says, adding that rates are updated annually in January.
The municipal government began converting some of the free street parking spaces in the Olympic Village into metered parking in the summer of 2017.
See also
- Parking meters installed: Vancouver ends free 2-hour parking in West End
- City of Vancouver to remove Yaletown parallel parking spaces
- Spanish Banks pay parking cancelled by Vancouver Park Board
- All remaining free parking stalls on Granville Island could be turned into metered parking
- Olivia Munn can't believe how expensive parking is in Yaletown (VIDEO)