THE CORPORATION OF THE CITY OF PORT COQUITLAM C ¢
. MEMORANDUM

MAR 7 1983

TO: B. Kirk, March 2, 1983
City Administrator

FROM: F.E. Peters., P. Eng.;
City Engineer

SUBJECT: Parking Shortage at Rec ‘Center Parking LOt -
. Public Works Committee — February 22nd, 1983

RECOMMENDATION:

That the permit Parking be removed from the Maple
Drive Parking Lot in order to allow for better utilization of
this lot and take the pressure off the Recreation Center.

BACKG

. Two letters have heen received complaining of the
shortage of parking in the Recreation Center parking lot; one
From the Senior Citizens and one from a commuter using the lot
as park-and=-ride. The problem stems from the fact that the
Court House has removed a number of the spaces and reserved
other, the Library has encroached on some of the parking, and
the commuters have been driven. off the Maple Drive parking lot
by the monthly permit fee and sre now using the Recreation
Center parking lot. During the day there are few spaces left
on the west side of the Recreation Center even though the-
six-hour on the east side are virtually unused. The
construction of the additional parking for the Library will
partially relieve this problem and we will attempt: to do that

‘construction as soon eas is practical.

In the meantime, it is obvious that the City parking
lot at Maple Drive is mostly empty and that commuters who used
~to park there have now moved elsewhere. It seems grossly
unfair to charge commuters a monthly fee to park in one lot but
allow them to take all the available spaces in another lot at
“no. charge. :

: The Committee considered two possible options. The
“first would. be to charge the same permit fee for both commuter
parking lots and the second would be to eliminate the fee from
both parking lots. There could be two valid reasons for
charging a fee for commuter parking. One reason would be for
the City to obtain an income from the parking lots to help
-defrey the expense of providing the parking. This reason is
obviously not valid since the City has only sold three permits
for the Maple Drive parking lot, an amount insignificant
towards the cost of providing and maintaining the lot.
Commuters obviously are prepared to find alternative spets

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