News Releases

Council Updates

Posted on: March 2, 2022

Council briefs for February 28, 2022

Easier parking for residents 80+

Council is looking at ways to provide residents who are 80 years old and older with free parking in downtown Banff without having to use the app, online web portal or payment machine to log their licence plate. All registered residents receive three hours of free parking per day, and because they register their licence plate each time they park, they can split their three free hours of parking into multiple visits.

When reviewing the Visitor Pay Parking system, at least one councillor said they’d heard from some seniors who did not have cell phones to use the mobile app or online web portal to register their free parking and they had difficulty using the pay stations found around town. Drivers who are 80 and older could register to have their licence plates to a special list that would allow them to park for free without having to input their licence plate each time they park.

Exploring expanding Visitor Pay Parking to south side

The Town will monitor and collect data this summer on south side parking areas to determine whether visitor pay parking should be expanded across the bridge.

Council voted to collect data this year on:

the Recreation Grounds south and north parking lots,
Birch Avenue parking lot (by the Buffalo Nations Luxton Museum and the Banff Trading Post),
parking on Sundance Road and by the Banff Trail Riders Stables,
parking on Spray Avenue (from the Banff Springs Hotel to Bow Falls Avenue), and
parking at Bow Falls

Data collected includes monitoring parking volumes and turnover, and surveyed property lines. Council asked for data to assess whether they are congested and could benefit from the turnover incentive that pay parking provides. Council also wants to determine if the Nancy Pauw Bridge will create more parking issues on the south side after the new pedestrian bridge connecting Central Park and the Recreation Grounds is completed this fall. Administration will study vehicle occupancy this summer and return to council with a report as part of the 2023 service review. Initial consultation with directly affected stakeholders, such as the operators of the museum, Trading Post, stables and raft service, will also be part of the collection of data.

Visitor Pay Parking and Resident Permits achieve goals

Even though the new system started in July 2021 and it was during the pandemic, data from the first year of operations show visitor pay parking and the resident permit program helped achieve its objectives.

The data showed the programs were effective in:

removing visitor parking from residential streets in the downtown
increasing use of the free Train Station Parking lot
increasing parking stall turnover in the downtown core
reducing congestion of drivers looking for parking
incentivise daytime use of empty private parking
enable short-term parking for loading or passenger pick ups
provide alternative revenue

The data also provided interesting analysis of parking in Banff.

Parking Transactions from July 5 to August 31 (includes residents registering for free parking)

115,000 parking sessions initiated
10,000 (8.5%) were resident sessions
40% of transactions were on mobile devices (45,000)
2% chose to extend their time
60-minute sessions were the most popular with visitors at 24% of all sessions
20-minute sessions were the most popular with residents at 33% of all free sessions
Average length of stay was 1 hour 50 minutes

Resident use of paid parking stalls (with free hours)

August - 6,107 resident sessions = 9% of total users
September - 8,011 resident sessions = 15% of total users
October - 9,837resident sessions = 21% of total users
November - 9,565 resident sessions = 24% of total users
December - 10,524 resident sessions = 26% of total users

Transaction data for July 2021 to January 2022

99.8% of paid parking revenue was collected from visitors
0.2% of paid parking revenue was collected from residents who chose to stay for longer than the 3-hour free daily maximums
Those who paid = $1,352,586.33 paid by credit or debit card + $76,148.83 paid by cash
57% used meters to start sessions (includes visitors and resident free sessions)
43% used mobile app or web payment portal (includes visitors and resident free sessions)
63% of visitors paid using the meters vs 37% of visitors paid using the app or the web payment portal
74% of residents with permits signed in to free sessions using the app or web payment portal vs 26% of residents used the meters

Top 10 most-used meters based on payments

1. Central Park lot $148,092

2. Fire Hall lot (west) $96,471

3. Fire Hall lot (east) $94,187

4. Clock Tower lot $93,823

5. Town Hall lot $67,947

6. Health Unit lot $59,746

7. Mt Royal lot (west) $53,273

8. Mt Royal lot (east) $40,355

9. Bear St lot $40,130* (not open until July 20)

10. Bear St parkade $23,936

Top five meters that residents with permits used to sign in for parking sessions

1. Town Hall lot 24%

2. Bear Street lot 20%* (not open until July 20)

3. Clock Tower lot 10%

4. Bear St parkade (ground floor) 7%

5. Central Park lot 7%

Parking Tickets Issued

5,930 total tickets issued for failure to pay for parking (4,791 payable tickets and 1,139 warning tickets - warnings only in first 2 weeks)
1,699 total tickets issued for parking in residential zone without a valid permit (1,235 payable tickets issued and 464 warning tickets – warnings only in first 2 weeks)
872 total tickets issued for resident permit holders for failing to sign in for their free parking sessions (41 payable tickets and 831 warnings – residents were given 1 initial warning to remind them that they were required to sign in)

Out of 4,908 resident parking permits issued: