… and people need to park them somewhere.
The University of Victoria has plans to build a $75M sports centre; Saanich residents are all over the idea and don’t seem to mind that they weren’t consulted on that. They are instead livid about the parkade that UVic plans to build in order to serve the new sports centre — so much so that Saanich council refused to approve plans last night at a marathon meeting that lasted until 1:30 a.m.
Full disclosure: I work at UVic. I have watched as year after year our parking rates go up and the number of spaces are reduced. When there are events on campus, the number one gripe I hear is how hard it is to find parking. Yes, there are lots of buses that serve UVic, but if you are carrying anything bigger than a backpack — large items for display (e.g. trade show merchandise), boxes of books, musical instruments or sports equipment — public transit may not be your first choice. Ditto if you are traveling from outside the core municipalities — say a visiting team, for example; likely you are going to drive.
So I ask Saanich residents to re-think their ire and to talk to the folks who live near Royal Athletic Park and the Save On Foods Memorial Arena — I’m pretty sure they would welcome a nearby parkade in exchange for their street access back. During events the residential side streets in that neighbourhood are clogged and difficult to navigate; is that really what you want, Saanich?