Petitions launch against Vancouver's plans for road tolls, parking permits

People are already petitioning against Vancouver's plans for road tolls, mandatory parking permits

Traffic in Vancouver (Shutterstock)

Petitions have already been launched against some of the new strategies voted in by Vancouver city council this week.

The first petition, on Change.org, is entitled Revoke road tolls into Vancouver Downtown and Central Broadway and states that “many factors have not been considered into adding mobility pricing into Vancouver’s metro core.”

See also:

On Tuesday night, Vancouver City Council approved city staff’s Climate Emergency Action Plan that outlined a number of measures, including the implementation of mobility pricing, such as road tolls, within the Metro Core.

The matter of road tolls dominated city council’s debate over the course of the evening and culminated with a 6-4 vote in favour of the specific policy on mobility pricing.

Going forward, city staff will report back to city council before the end of 2022 with further recommendations on the options and next steps to implement mobility pricing. There will be consultation with residents, businesses, students, and post-secondary institutions. City staff also indicated their desire to implement mobility pricing by 2025 or earlier.

During the discussion, Councillor Jean Swanson quipped that if people don’t like the fact that city has approved the plan for the future tolls, “they have lots of chances to say so.”

At the same time, another petition has launched, this time in an effort to get the city to renege on its approval of mandatory parking permits for all residential streets.

This petition, also on Change.org, is entitled Do NOT Extend Permit Parking to ALL of Vancouver and comes after Vancouver City Council decided to set forth on a strategy to implement mandatory parking permits on all residential streets across the city, with vehicle owners charged based on the carbon intensity and age of the vehicle.

This was one of the strategies outlined by city staff’s Climate Emergency Action Plan (CEAP), which had over 30 strategies individually voted on by city council on Tuesday evening.

With city council’s approval, there is now direction for city staff to conduct further planning and report back in 2021 with options for implementation.

With files from Kenneth Chan.

See also: